To Build a Family
by rae7788
Summary: Sequel to 'To Build a Home.' Now that Harvey has officially adopted Mike, life is going pretty well for everyone. But there are always things to figure out when it comes to raising a teenager and going through the ups and downs of adolescence...
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone! It's been a crazy few weeks but I managed to scrape some time together to write this (long plane rides equal writing fanfiction lol). Sorry this is short, but it'll have to do for the time being. As I said before, this sequel is going to be a collection of one-shots set in no particular chronological order, so let me know what you think or if you have any requests. I feel like it's kind of a silly title, but I'm really bad at titles so I'm taking the easy way out. Thanks for reading- here, now have some lighthearted fluff!  
**

* * *

_Sold, I'm ever  
_

_Open ears and open eyes_

_Wake up to your starboard bride_

_Who goes in and then stays inside_

_Oh the demons come, they can subside_

_-From "Calgary" by Bon Iver_

It took a good six months after the adoption was finalized for Mike to actually call Harvey 'dad' to his face. And it took years and years after that for Mike to gradually switch from using 'Harvey' to just 'Dad' all the time; years for the self-doubt and discomfort Mike felt about vocalizing the importance of Harvey's presence in his life in such an explicit way to fade away until only a comfortable warmth remained, constantly flickering in his chest even when he had grown up and was long gone from the apartment. He carried this warmth like a security blanket through his darkest moments; he felt its spark inside his heart in his happiest days. Because no matter how good or bad life got, Mike was always content in the knowledge that he would always have the home and family that he had built with Harvey.

But initially, it wasn't something that either of them gave much thought to. Harvey didn't consider it until Donna brought it up one night at the office in April, shortly after the adoption was finalized.

_"Harvey, maybe you should talk to Mike about what he's going to call you now that you've officially adopted him," _Donna had said as they were scanning and organizing the papers of the Young contract in the filing room.

_"What do you mean? He calls me Harvey. What's wrong with that?" _Harvey had asked in confusion, pausing in his motions of straightening the papers.

Donna had sighed. _"Come on, Harvey. Rub those brain cells together_— _Mike is legally your son. He probably wants to acknowledge that by calling you 'Dad.' Have you made it clear to him that that's okay with you?"_

Harvey had frowned at this in order to counteract the strange warmth that was spreading through his chest at the idea of Mike calling him 'Dad.' _"He can call me whatever he's comfortable with, Donna. I don't want to pressure him," _Harvey had said dismissively. He figured it would spook Mike if he tried to have a talk on the matter with him— while Mike had come a long way when it came to being open with Harvey, this was such a sensitive issue. Plus Harvey didn't want to presume that Mike thought of Harvey as his father. So he let it be, figuring that Mike would just continue to call him whatever he was most comfortable with.

And that was fine with Harvey, it really was. If Mike never got around to calling 'Dad', well, that was okay, because Mike deserved to call Harvey whatever he wanted to call Harvey.

But that didn't stop a small corner of his heart from wishing to hear the moniker 'Dad' coming from the mouth of the boy that he considered his son.

* * *

In Mike's opinion, on the other hand, nothing had really changed since Harvey had adopted him—and he meant that in only the most positive way: Harvey had already been doing everything that fathers did for their sons for months, so all that the adoption did was make it legally official. So when all the paperwork was finalized in April six months after Harvey had filed for adoption, they celebrated and then carried on in much the same way as they always did: Mike was Mike and Harvey was Harvey, and they were both happy.

But that all changed over the summer when Mike started to notice the way that other people referred to Harvey in relation to Mike. Like when Harvey showed up at Mike's speech competition and Rachel grabbed his arm and pointed out "there's your dad, Mike." Or when Mike got sick at Pearson Hardman one day hot day in July and Donna, smoothing back his hair after he vomited, promised him that she would "go and find his dad for him,"— well, eventually it all got him wondering why _he _didn't call Harvey his dad; since that was what Harvey seemed to appear to be in everyone else's eyes.

And of course, Mike wanted to call Harvey his father simply because he wanted concrete proof that he shared a parental connection with someone. He'd never admit it out loud, of course, but he _thought _of Harvey as his father. And he'd called him 'dad' a few times over the year and a half he'd known the older man— he had slipped up occasionally when he was sick or particularly exhausted or feeling any extremely strong emotion, but unfortunately most of these occasions were only hazy at best in his memory, dimmed from the fog of sleep that was generally blurring the edges of his mind at the time of the incident. So whenever he tried to recall Harvey's reaction to him dropping the d-bomb, it always eluded him, like grains of sand slipping through his fingers as he desperately tried to clench his hands together and hold all the memory fragments together so that he could at least form _some _sort of shadowy impression of how Harvey felt about the name 'dad.'

He supposed that the only logical way to find out how Harvey would react to being called dad was to say it sometime when he wasn't concussed or sick or on the verge of falling asleep. That way he'd be conscious enough to be able to gauge Harvey's facial expression to know how well his attempts had been received.

But that was much easier said than done, of course. Because even though Harvey had explicitly told Mike that he wanted him in his life as his son back during the whole Grammy-moving-to-Florida-colossal-misunderstanding-and-ensuing-crisis thing, and had since proved it to be true through a myriad of unspoken actions and quiet, meaningful little gestures, some small part of Mike would always question the true depth of Harvey's affection for him. He couldn't help it—the major emotional wounds from his time with the Jensens had long since scabbed and scarred over under the caring and watchful eye of first Grammy, and then Harvey and Donna. But Mike felt like there would always be a shard of self-doubt that lay like a piece of shrapnel deep under the surface of his skin, occasionally returning to haunt him and tug at the still-tender scars. For the most part, Harvey's presence acted as a buffer and protected him from succumbing to this doubt, but there were still days when it all lingered around him like an icy cold shadow that he couldn't escape from. And frankly put, Mike was scared of rejection; scared that he would see only revulsion or anger on Harvey's face if he decided to acknowledge that he thought of Harvey as his father—after all, Harvey was always complaining that he was too young to be Mike's father whenever strangers commented on the two of them, so maybe he wouldn't want to be typecast as the father figure in this scenario—maybe he'd just prefer the more ambiguous, spacey title of 'permanent guardian' or 'adoptive guardian'; something more neutral that implied less of an emotional attachment.

Mike didn't know—but he had a feeling that things were going to come to a head sooner or later and he'd find out, for better or for worse.

There had been many times when he'd almost brought it up; when he'd come so close to just asking Harvey if he would mind it if Mike called him by a paternal title—but the words always froze on the tip of his tongue at the last second and he usually wound up stuttering something and disappearing into his room like some kind of blushing schoolgirl.

The closest they'd ever come to talking about it had been an incident from a few weeks prior—it had started off as a mundane enough day. Harvey was up and out of the apartment before Mike's alarm had gone off because he had to be in court early. So Mike had gone through his normal morning routine, which involved accidentally spending half an hour in the shower and then scrambling to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get out the door to NYU in the span of ten minutes. They were out of Mike's favorite kind of cereal, so he'd just grabbed a bagel and hastily scrawled a note on a post-it to let Harvey know that they needed more cereal, stat.

When he'd gotten home later that evening, there had been a box of cereal waiting for him on the counter with a note that simply said "gone to the gym to work out." This was a little odd because Harvey generally signed his notes 'Harvey' instead of just leaving them blank (Mike didn't know why he bothered; he certainly recognized his guardian's handwriting at this point). But maybe Harvey had been in a hurry to get to the gym or he had finally realized the futility of taking the time to needlessly sign notes, so Mike didn't really think much of the lack of signature.

The stranger part was that Mike's original post-it note had gone missing from the cupboard where he had stuck it that morning. Harvey and Mike both scrawled each other notes to say where they were going or to add something to the grocery list pretty frequently, and they always left them up all over the kitchen out of sheer laziness (and okay, maybe the reason that Mike didn't take his down after Harvey responded to them was because he liked the spirit of homey clutter that the colorful post-its added to their rather Spartan kitchen, but who cared about the reason anyway?). So they'd generally leave all of them up for a month or so until it got to be too _much _homey clutter, and then they'd taken them all down and start anew. And they'd taken the old ones down just last week, so Mike didn't know what Harvey would have done with the cereal note or why he would have gotten rid of it. But once again, he didn't think that much of it, although the incident lingered at the back of his mind for a few days after until one warm, breezy evening in early September.

"I'm going for a bike ride, Harvey," Mike called into the kitchen as he pulled on his shoes. He didn't have any homework since it was the beginning of the school year, so he had decided to take advantage of the mild summer weather while it lasted.

"Can you stop at the gas station and pick up a gallon of milk on your way back?" Harvey asked, handing Mike his wallet. "Just put it on my credit card."

So after Mike had worked up a good sweat zipping up and down the streets, he wheeled over to the neighborhood gas station and grabbed a gallon of milk. He paid for it without incident and it wasn't until he went to slide Harvey's credit card back into his wallet that Mike saw a post-it note with his own handwriting on it tucked in amongst Harvey's license and other credit cards. He drew it out of Harvey's wallet and skimmed it realizing quickly that it was his post-it about the cereal from the other morning. He frowned at in confusion—why would Harvey have it saved in his wallet?

And that was when what he had written in the note fully registered in his memory and he did a double take, scanning over the post-it again and feeling his stomach drop in mortification. He stood frozen in the aisle of the gas station as realization seeped through his veins, rereading the note and feeling his face warm in embarrassment. In his haste to get out the door to school he had written:

_Dad,_

_ We're out of that cereal that I always eat for breakfast—you know, the one that you keep saying is going to give me cavities and that you're not going to pay for me to get them fixed by the dentist? Well, if you want to keep me from growing that last inch or two and being taller than you, then you had better buy me more sugary breakfast food to stunt my growth, ASAP. Please?_

Mike's mind was abuzz as he rode back to the apartment. Had Harvey kept what was otherwise just a run-of-the-mill post-it note because of the embarrassing salutation that Mike had unconsciously written in his rush to get to school on time? And if so, had he kept it because he liked that Mike had written 'dad'? Or had he kept it because he didn't like it but wanted to get it out of plain sight in the kitchen so he could avoid having to talk to Mike about what was a potentially awkward and emotionally messy issue?

Mike wanted to talk to Harvey about it; knew that he _should _talk to Harvey about it. But when he got back to the apartment, the thought occurred to him that the reason that Harvey hadn't signed his "going to the gym" note was because he probably didn't know if he should sign notes from Harvey or from Dad anymore since it probably appeared to him that Mike was subtly trying to get him to go by 'Dad'. But the last thing Mike wanted was for Harvey to feel obligated to let Mike call him that when it might be something he was uncomfortable with. And then all of his fears about being rejected came crashing back over him, so he didn't say anything—he just handed Harvey the milk and went off to shower and go to bed.

* * *

And now it was the very beginning of October, almost Mike's 16th birthday, and Mike hadn't really made any progress on Operation _Figure Out How to Call Harvey 'Dad' in a Subtle Way. _He'd been far too busy with school and NYU and speech and helping Harvey at the office to dedicate any time to the project, but he had been busy in a good way so he didn't mind.

"Mike, I'm telling you, the Stanton Foundation can't afford to merge with the Smiths—"

"Yeah, but that's because they haven't liquidated their assets. It's a risk, but—"

Mike and Harvey were walking out of Pearson Hardman to head home for the day, and they were currently engaged in their normal bickering over legal possibilities for the clients they were working with. Neither of them would admit it, but they both loved it; bantering back and forth and testing their minds against one another. Harvey usually won because he had so much more experience, but Mike could hold his own pretty well and he was good for coming up with last minute ideas. He was slowly getting better and better at helping Harvey out, and his pre-law classes at NYU were great, although they were still a little too basic for his taste.

"They don't even have enough assets to make it worth liquidating!" Harvey said passionately, waving his file that contained the Stanton financials. It was Ray's day off, so they had to walk to the parking garage across the street to get to Harvey's car. Mike wondered if Harvey would let him drive home— he only needed 3 more hours of driving time before he could get his license when he turned 16 next week, and he doubted Harvey wanted him to finish the three hours—he wasn't sure if Harvey was ready to let him loose on the road by himself yet.

"What are you talking about—" Mike's voice died in his throat as he saw the car come barreling around the corner— he barely had time to register the fact that it was red and that it was going way too fast and that it was _heading straight for Harvey, _who had just stepped into the street.

As the car screeched in their direction, many things flashed through Mike's mind. First and foremost, he was thrown back into the memory of the car crash that had killed his parents— he felt the adrenaline kick in as his perfect memory brought back the feeling of the car spinning out of control, the sound of his mom screaming, and the mind-numbing panic he'd felt when his parents wouldn't wake up in the front seat. He suddenly imagined Harvey lying on the ground, lifeless and unmoving like his parents had been, and he felt a wave of agony run through to the core of his very bones as he tried to comprehend what it would mean to lose Harvey.

"DAD!" The word tore from his lips in a panicked shout, and he grabbed Harvey by the arm and yanked him back onto the sidewalk as forcefully as he could. Harvey stumbled backwards but made it onto the sidewalk just before the car sped by them and down the street, completely out of control.

Harvey turned to Mike, his normally composed mask replaced by a visage of shock. He stared at Mike for a minute as he processed what had just happened, his eyes wide. Finally they narrowed and Harvey took Mike by the shoulders.

"Are you all right?" He asked, his voice tight and his hands moving down Mike's arms as though checking for broken bones.

Mike shivered and tugged his arms out of Harvey's grip, wrapping them around his waist and hugging himself. He was still breathing way too quickly and he couldn't believe how close Harvey had just come to being hit by the car.

"Mike, are you all right?" Harvey asked with more urgency, his hand coming up to gently lift Mike's chin so Mike would look at him.

"I'm fine," Mike said, but his voice sounded oddly wobbly and his legs felt weak. "The car didn't hit me. Dad— I mean, Harvey, are you okay?!" His voice rose at the end of the phrase and he knew he sounded slightly hysterical but he couldn't stop thinking about how close a car had come to once again taking someone important from his life.

"I'm fine, Mike," Harvey said reassuringly, looking into Mike's eyes curiously. "You pulled me out of the way just in time. I'm fine," he said, and his eyes darkened slightly as clarity seemed to settle in and he realized what was going through Mike's head. "I'm fine, Mike. Thank you for grabbing me," he said patiently, his hand warm under Mike's chin, his thumb moving soothing across Mike's cheek a few times.

"You need to shave," Harvey said, smiling as he dropped his hand and began heading towards the parking garage again, choosing not to comment on the fact that Mike was walking much closer to him than was necessary.

"No, I don't. I'm growing a beard, can't you tell?!" Mike exclaimed querulously, insulted by Harvey's inability to see how truly manly and impressive his slow-growing, patchy facial hair was. Harvey let out a genuine laugh at this, which only added to Mike's indignation.

"I think you've still got a ways to go, kid," Harvey said as they climbed into the car. Mike nestled into his seat, his prior panic dissipating now that he was certain that Harvey was okay. He gathered up all his courage and cleared his throat. After all, if he could save Harvey's life from a speeding car, surely he could survive asking a simple question.

"Harvey, did you...did you you mind what I called you earlier?" He asked nervously as Harvey backed the car out. Harvey turned to him, his face serious.

"You can call me whatever you feel comfortable with, Mike. You know that. Harvey is fine, Dad is great. Don't over-think it; it's not worth it to waste your time worrying about something so trivial. Clearly you need to focus all your energy on growing that beard instead," Harvey said wryly, reaching over and ruffling Mike's hair.

Mike rolled his eyes and shrugged away but he smiled nonetheless. He knew it would probably take him a long time to feel completely comfortable calling Harvey 'Dad' but he had made so much progress over the past 2 years that he knew that someday he wouldn't think twice before dropping the name. And for now, that was enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi everyone! Here's the second one-shot in this series. This one takes place during the 8 month gap between chapter 19 of tbah and the epilogue of tbah, so Mike's still 14 here and Harvey hasn't officially adopted him yet but they're living together. Let me know if you guys want a more specific timeline for anything in this universe- I have a really specific mental calendar of everything, like down to specific dates and stuff haha so if anything is confusing, just let me know and I'll try to clarify. I should also disclaim that I don't know anything about medicine or the geography of upstate New York. Hope you enjoy some good old-fashioned h/c and sick!Mike.  
**

**Mike's age: 14½ **

* * *

_When it's black t__ake a little time to hold yourself_

_Take a little time to feel around before it's gone._

_You won't let go but you still keep on falling down_

_Remember how you save me now from all of my wrong_

_-From "I Won't Let You Go" by James Morrison_

Mike wasn't feeling well _at all. _

Not that he'd ever actually admit that to anyone who asked, though. He had been looking forward to this camping trip for months and he wasn't going to miss it over some stupid cold, damn it!

Which was why he was currently hiding out in the filing room of Pearson Hardman— it was Thursday afternoon, and he just had to make it until tomorrow without being found out and then he'd be in the clear. By some miracle, Harvey had actually agreed to _take off work early_ Friday afternoon so that they could drive upstate to go camping for the weekend in the same neck of the woods where he and Paul had gone camping every summer when they were kids, and Mike wasn't about to risk the trip getting cancelled just because he felt a little under the weather.

This was mainly because Harvey was weirdly excited about the whole endeavor and Mike didn't want to be the one putting the kibosh on their weekend plans—he had never imagined his guardian to be much of an outdoorsman (after all, spending more than 2 minutes outside meant that there was a possibility of Harvey's precious suits getting wrinkled), but when they had gone to Chicago in April for Easter break and Paul had suggested that the three of them should go on a camping trip at some point over the summer, Harvey had jumped at the opportunity and descended into a whirlwind of planning. He had gone all out and (despite Mike's protests that he was going completely overboard) had bought them both brand new hiking backpacks, sleeping bags, and a whole host of other random supplies that they would probably never need in upstate New York during July.

Like helmets with headlights (they weren't going spelunking). Or climbing harnesses and ropes (Mike didn't know where Harvey thought they were going to find mountains to climb in the forests of upstate New York). Or ice picks (he couldn't even hazard a guess about the potential necessity of this one).

Harvey had also taken to driving down random side streets in neighborhoods that Mike wasn't familiar with, handing Mike a compass, and forcing him to use it to direct Harvey wherever they were going. According to Harvey, this was supposedly "an exercise to hone Mike's orienteering skills for when he was out on the trails" but according to Mike, it was stupid. Harvey wouldn't budge, however, and Mike had been late to school twice during the school year as a result. It had been difficult to explain to his NYU professors that he had missed class because what was normally a 10 minute drive from the apartment to campus took 2 hours when Mike got them lost in Harlem after he threw the compass out the window and off a bridge in frustration (after that they had both just given up on making it to school/work and stopped at a café to get pancakes for breakfast).

So needless to say, Mike didn't want to put a damper on this camping trip since it seemed to mean a lot to Harvey for whatever reason. He initially figured that it was just because Harvey wanted to return to his old childhood haunts and remember the long-lost summer days of his childhood with Paul—the two brothers had become closer lately, and Mike could tell that Harvey liked being a part of Paul's life again.

But a small part of him also suspected that it might have had something to do with an excerpt from one of Harvey's parenting books (which, of course, Harvey completely denied owning or reading) that Mike had happened to glance over a few weeks ago when he and Harvey had been drafting bylaws in the kitchen. Harvey had sent him to his bedroom to look for the publishing information of a certain law book that he wanted to cite and Mike had been digging through Harvey's crowded bookshelf when he had found a book about helping adopted children integrate into families buried between several thick law tomes.

He had skimmed through some of it briefly, laughing at the hokey pictures on the cover and rolling his eyes at how contrived and corny some of the text was. But then he stopped at a section that Harvey (er, sorry, _not _Harvey—Harvey didn't read parenting books) had marked with a post-it note about 'family bonding,' and read the excerpt that not-Harvey had underlined with a strange warm feeling in his stomach.

"_It might be helpful to take a brief family trip so that the new family member(s) can spend time with you, the new parents. Try to go somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of daily life; away from your cell phones and facebook and email. That way you can all focus on being with one another in a neutral, welcoming, and fun setting."_

Well, the middle of the woods in upstate New York sure was far away from the hustle and bustle of daily life at Pearson Hardman. And there probably wouldn't be enough reception for Harvey to check his email or field thousands of calls from worried clients that he was trying to close, so it all fit the criteria of the book. Of course, it was probably just a coincidence—surely Harvey wouldn't plan a ridiculously elaborate camping trip just to make Mike feel more 'integrated' in the Specter family (whatever that meant)…right? After all, Harvey was just his guardian. Even though Mike thought of Harvey as a father-figure in the privacy of his own mind, he didn't want to presume anything about Harvey's possible intentions with this camping trip.

But either way, Mike didn't want to disappoint Harvey by wimping out—and not to mention that Paul had come all the way out here from Chicago for the weekend. So when he'd started to feel ill last night, he'd just gone to bed early, fervently hoping he'd wake up and feel all better— after all, maybe it was just a stupid little summer cold that could be cured by a good night's sleep.

But then Mike had woken up this morning feeling much worse, and at this point he had to concede that, okay, maybe it was a little more than just a cold. He was currently sitting at the small desk in the filing room and pretending to be proofreading files for Harvey. But in reality, he was just staring glassily at the walls, completely unable to concentrate—his head ached, his throat was sore, his chest was tight, and he was starting to feel nauseous. And to top it all off, he was freezing cold; despite the fact that he knew it was a sizzling 90 degrees outside.

But he was still holding out on the hope that Harvey wouldn't notice how bad he felt. And that tonight he could go home and get a really good night's sleep and then also sleep during the drive up to the woods tomorrow. By that point he'd probably be all better and nobody would ever have to even know that he'd been sick. It was the perfect plan, but he just had to make it through the rest of the day so he could go home and crawl under his covers.

Unfortunately, this was proving to be easier said than done. As excited as he was to go hang out in the woods with Harvey and Paul, crawling under the desk to sleep seemed a lot more tempting at the moment—although it would probably ruin his façade of being in perfect health if he were caught sleeping in the middle of the day. Luckily Harvey had been in meetings all morning and he was in court this afternoon, so Mike didn't have to worry about hiding his illness from his guardian— that was why he had chosen to come into the office today to work on his internship instead of going to Grammy and Henry Morris' apartment to hang out like he'd originally planned—Grammy would know that Mike was sick in an instant if she saw him, but when Harvey was this preoccupied with court stuff, Mike could usually sneak things around him.

Although a small part of him kind of wished that Harvey had noticed when he hadn't eaten breakfast that morning or had heard Mike's deep, chesty coughs echoing in the shower— at 14 years old, he didn't want to be babied when he didn't feel well; but he didn't want to feel alone in his illness either, and it was always nice to have someone give a damn that he was sick.

But he told himself to stop feeling miserable for himself—he was the one who had decided to hide this so now he was going to have to deal with it on his own.

He knew that he should probably start reading the files Harvey had given him so that he could at least pretend to have been _slightly _productive, but his eyelids were so heavy and it felt so _good _to close them; it made the pounding in his head recede slightly and the room stop spinning around him. He shivered and rested his hot cheek against the cool wood of the table, his eyes drifting shut again of their own volition….

"—Mike? Wake up, Mike," a female voice was saying in his ear an unknown amount of time later.

He blinked fuzzily, wondering where the hell he was and what was going on and why he felt so _awful. _

He saw a flash of red to his side. "Donna?" he croaked, his throat aching and his chest burning.

"Mike, honey. How long have you been feeling sick?" Donna asked, her miraculously cool hand coming up to feel his forehead. Her face swam into focus in his vision, and he noticed that her mouth was taut with concern. It was probably not a good sign that she had instantly known upon seeing him that he was sick—after all, he was supposed to be able to hide this; to _control _this.

"I'm okay, Donna," he whispered, his stomach rolling unpleasantly. Donna frowned at him and looked like she was about to open her mouth to give him a lecture about hiding things like this from her, but before she could start talking, Mike made a dive for the garbage basket and emptied the contents of his stomach into it.

Donna dropped to her knees next to him and rubbed soothing circles on his back as he retched. When he was finished he sat back wearily, dimly realizing that his cheeks were slightly damp with tears and that he somehow felt even worse than he had before.

"It's okay, sweetie," Donna was saying next to him, her voice low and calming in a way that made Mike suddenly miss his mom.

"Where's my dad?" Mike croaked out, barely conscious of what he was saying. He grabbed onto the sleeve of Donna's dress. "Where's Harvey, I need Harvey…"

"Shh," Donna soothed, smoothing the hair back from his forehead. She made eye contact with Mike, who was currently weaving in and out of coherency and finding it rather hard to concentrate.

"Mike," she said and Mike did his best to meet her gaze. "I'm going to go find Harvey, okay? I'll get someone to come sit you with and then I'll call him. It's okay, Mike— I'll go get your dad." When Mike thought about the incident later, it would all be a muddled, feverish haze—but he latched onto the words "I'll go get your dad" in that moment and clung to them, letting them anchor his troubled mind and hold his feverish, fractured thoughts together.

"Okay," he mumbled miserably, curling up into a little ball on his side. _Just keep waiting, _he told himself. _Donna will go get_ _Harvey and it will all be okay then. _

He felt Donna's hand leave his hair and then he heard her talking to someone in the hallway before he heard the sound of her heels clicking away from the filing room.

"Oh, hey, Mike," a new voice said and Mike blinked wearily.

Louis Litt's face swam into his line of vision and Mike groaned and shut his eyes again.

"G'way, Louis," he grumbled. "I don't want to do your paperwork."

"Jeeze, Mike, I'm only here to help," Louis said. "You should know that I have a medical kit on me at all times. But if you're not willing to accept my help and you'd rather wallow there in your germs then so be it. But this is how plagues begin—"

"Louis," Mike interrupted after Louis spent 10 minutes explaining how the Bubonic plague had spread throughout Europe in a step-by-step process and how Mike was probably going to be responsible for starting the next pandemic. "Can you get me some water?"

"What? Oh, sure," Louis said, mercifully disappearing into the hallway and leaving Mike alone, curled up under the table in the filing room.

He fought back a sudden wave of tears as he wished fervently for Harvey's comforting presence. He had a feeling it was going to be a long weekend….

* * *

2 days.

That's how long it took before Mike's fever finally broke, and it was a _long _48 hours.

After Donna had found Mike sleeping in the filing room Thursday afternoon, it had instantly become apparent that whatever Mike was fighting with was more than 'just a bad cold', as Mike had weakly claimed from the backseat of the town car. Harvey and Donna had brought Mike to the apartment and Harvey had called in a favor with a client of his, Joel Murray, who was a doctor who Harvey had defended the year prior after he'd been falsely accused of malpractice (he'd then added 'find Mike a permanent physician' to his to-do list).

Joel had come over to the apartment to check Mike out, and after taking Mike's vitals and examining him, had shrugged and told Harvey that it was just a nasty summer virus and that there was nothing to do but to keep Mike hydrated and wait it out. He had given Harvey strict instructions to bring Mike to the hospital if his fever got noticeably higher or if he couldn't keep anything down without vomiting for more than 24 hours straight.

Then he had left and Harvey, Donna, and the newly-arrived Paul had settled in for the weekend to take care of Mike. It really wasn't a 3-person job, but Donna claimed that she couldn't abandon Mike to the likes of Paul and Harvey, and Paul had refused to leave and go back to Chicago when he had landed in New York and found out that the camping trip was a no-go. Instead he had parked himself in the kitchen and obediently cut up vegetables with Donna to make chicken noodle soup.

Even though Harvey knew that it was just a virus, Mike almost seemed _more _sick this time around than he had when he'd had pneumonia back in the winter. Maybe that was because the pneumonia had mostly just affected Mike's lungs, while this virus was taking its toll on Mike's entire body—but he had thrown up two times more, was shaking with fever chills, and coughing miserably. Sometimes he'd ramble senselessly; other times he'd sleep fitfully.

Harvey soon discovered that a delirious, virus-ridden Mike was an emotional, clingy Mike. He had woken up a couple of times, crying out from nightmares of his time at the Jensens and the death of his parents. Though Paul and Donna had each tried to comfort him, Harvey's was the only presence who could calm Mike down enough to go back to sleep.

But it was heartbreakingly difficult for Harvey to watch Mike feeling so awful and not be able to do anything to fix it or make it better. He was a closer; a man of action—he didn't just sit by idly and allow bad things to happen around him; his job was to _fix _things. But he couldn't fix a summer virus—all he could do was sit helplessly with Mike through his nightmares and rub his back while he vomited.

He was relieved when Mike finally fell into a deep sleep on Saturday night after sleeping restlessly all afternoon and evening. Feeling like he had the situation slightly under control at the moment, he sent Donna home for the night, gave Paul his bed, and settled himself on the couch to do paperwork with Mike's bedroom door opened so he could hear if Mike needed anything or had another nightmare. As the wee hours of the night ticked by and all was quiet from the direction of Mike's bedroom, Harvey began to relax—if Mike could sleep peacefully through the night, maybe that meant his fever would break soon.

He was so engrossed in his paperwork at 3 in the morning that he didn't notice that Mike was up and out of bed until the kid's hoarse, croaky voice jolted him from his reverie.

"I'm cold, Dad," Mike said, shuffling out into the living room where Harvey was sitting. He then plopped himself down on the couch right next to Harvey and curled up against Harvey's side, resting his head on Harvey's shoulder. "And I keep having bad dreams. Why is it so cold in here?" He asked, shivering lightly.

Harvey frowned at this— he could feel the heat radiating from Mike's body and attributed Mike's unusual willingness to initiate physical contact and use of the moniker 'Dad' to the high fever— and reached over with his free arm to grab Mike's favorite blanket off the back of the couch. He wrapped it and an arm around Mike, effectively drawing him even closer to his side.

"You should be in bed," he said, bringing his free hand up to feel Mike's forehead, which was still just as burning hot as before. "It only seems cold because you're sick."

"'m not sick," Mike mumbled in an attempt at defiance, but the way that he nestled further into the combined heat of Harvey and the blanket counteracted any success he had at sounding not-sick. "What? I'm _fine. _You didn't even notice anything was wrong all day on Thursday—I would have been fine for camping. I'm just tired."

"You're right," Harvey said. "I didn't notice. But I should have. And that won't happen again. You need to tell me these things, Mike," Harvey rebuked him gently. "It's okay to be sick."

"Nahh, I'm okay," Mike said, shivering and huddling closer to Harvey with a big yawn. "Let's go camping now."

Harvey barked out a quiet laugh at this. "Sorry, Mike. It's already Saturday night. I think we'll have to wait for another weekend."

"But you want to go camping, so we should go," Mike said, looking up at Harvey with concerned, fever-bright blue eyes. He began twisting and pulling at a loose thread of the blanket with his fingers.

"What do you mean, _I _want to go camping? Did you not want to go?" Harvey asked curiously.

Mike coughed and shook his head quickly, his blond hair tickling Harvey's neck. "No! I wanted to go, of course—but I thought you wanted to go more. I mean, you bought all that stuff and now we're not even going to get to use it."

"That stuff will keep, Mike. We can find another weekend and use it all," Harvey pointed out, not seeing the problem.

"But you already had everything planned for _this _weekend. You and Paul could still go, you know. I can go stay with Grammy and Henry Morris for the weekend while I get better and you and Paul can go up there if you want," Mike offered hopefully, clearly just trying to find a way to please Harvey. It made Harvey's heart ache that Mike was so determined to find a way to get him to go camping just because he thought that was what Harvey wanted—and it was made even worse by the fact that he thought that Harvey would abandon him when he was sick just to go camping.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said gruffly. "Paul and I wanted to go on this camping trip with all _three _of us. That was the whole point—to get out into the woods and spend some time together. There are plenty of weekends left in the summer to go camping, but there's only one Mike."

Mike's fingers stopped twisting the blanket and he looked up at Harvey. "Do you really mean that?"

Harvey rolled his eyes. "Of course I do. Do you see any other Mikes that live here?"

"No," Mike said sleepily, eyelids drooping. "Where did Paul go? I need to tell him I'm sorry that he came all the way out here for no reason."

"He's sleeping in my bed. He didn't care at all, so don't start feeling bad about him too," Harvey cautioned firmly. Paul had sat with Mike and chatted with him for awhile earlier in the evening, but at this point Mike's fever was high enough that it didn't really surprise him that Mike didn't remember the conversation. "He said something about starting a Monopoly tournament with you tomorrow, so I wouldn't worry about him being bored this weekend. And he said he'd be back in town in August for a week, so we'll go camping then. Okay?"

"Okay," Mike yawned, closing his eyes. "Goodnight, Dad."

"You have a bed, you know," Harvey pointed out inanely, ignoring the warm feeling currently blossoming in his stomach (the warmth was probably just due to the heat of Mike's fever). But a little part of him couldn't help but think that maybe it was time that he started brushing up on New York adoption laws.

"That's nice," Mike murmured, waving him off and shifting closer as he drifted off to sleep.

Harvey rolled his eyes and reached for his files again with the arm that he didn't have around Mike. Paul was in his bed and Mike was slowly monopolizing more and more of the couch, so it seemed unlikely that he was going to get any real sleep that night. He might as well get _some _work done—or as much work as one could get done with an ill 14-year-old draped over their side.

He worked for a good while but his eyelids began drifting shut of their own accord as the hands on the clock drifted closer and closer to 4 in the morning. He valiantly struggled to keep his eyes open because he knew that he'd never hear the end of it if Paul or god forbid _Donna _should come in and see him essentially—he cringed just thinking of the word—_snuggling _with Mike on the couch.

But, he told himself as he dropped his stack of files on the floor, maybe he'd just close his eyes for a bit and be content with the moment. Mike was sleeping peacefully, his fever-induced nightmares nowhere to be seen for the time being. So maybe he'd just close his eyes for 5 minutes and join Mike in a cat nap for a bit.

And maybe tomorrow Mike would wake up and his fever would break and he'd go back to calling Harvey 'Harvey' instead of 'Dad' and he would still flinch away from Harvey's touch with slight wariness instead of initiating physical contact like the easy embrace that they shared right now. And that would be fine—it would be great actually, because Harvey wanted Mike to get over this virus and feel better as soon as possible, of course.

But for now Harvey had a teenager who implicitly trusted him to take care of him and protect him from the demons of his dreams; whose terrible nightmares and skeletons of the past were held at bay by Harvey's mere presence; who spoke to Harvey candidly and openly regarded him as a father figure.

And that was okay too.

* * *

Paul woke up Sunday morning feeling distinctly disoriented, just as he had the past 2 mornings. At first he wondered why he wasn't in his bed with Alicia in Chicago and then he remember that he was supposed to be on a camping trip with his brother and his…well, whatever Mike was. And _then _he wondered why he wasn't sleeping in a sleeping bag on the cold hard ground of upstate New York before realizing that he was sleeping in Harvey's bed because Mike was sick and they weren't camping.

It was ungodly early for a Sunday—barely 7— but Paul got out of bed anyway. He'd gone to sleep early last night and he knew that he should probably offer Harv the chance to crash in his own bed for a few hours—his older brother had been sleeping on the couch since Thursday night when Paul arrived and that probably wasn't too good for anyone's back, much less someone who already had shoulder problems from old baseball injuries.

As he padded into Harvey's kitchen to make himself some breakfast, he froze and did a double take when he saw the couch, choking back a guffaw. Harvey Reginald Specter, his tough big brother, was sleeping on the couch in a weird half-sitting-up position, his mouth wide open and his head bobbing every so often. Mike was curled up against his side and the two of them were somehow sharing the plaid couch blanket that Paul had noticed Mike favoring all weekend. Mike looked much better, even in his sleep—his cheeks were no longer flushed and his breathing seemed much easier. Hopefully his fever had broken in the night.

Paul smiled as he pulled out his phone to snap a quick picture of the two of them. He hadn't been upset at all about missing the camping trip—he was a pretty easy-going guy and it wasn't like Mike could help being sick. And after all, there was still half the summer left to squeeze a camping trip in. But this, _this_ was the ultimate clincher; this just sealed the deal of his non-anger. In fact, he doubted that he'd ever be able to be angry with Mike over _anything—_anyone who could get cold, closed-off Harvey to let his guard down like that deserved a medal and Paul's unfailing support and admiration for life.

To be honest though, Harvey himself probably deserved Paul's unfailing support and admiration too. He had really changed over the past year or so since their father's death and since Mike's arrival in their lives. Asshole-associate-lawyer-Harvey had been so different from childhood-Harvey and law-school-Harvey, who had bankrupted himself to pay for Paul's medical bills when he'd gotten sick.

But now new junior-partner-lawyer-Harvey was much more open and he was reaching out to try and be closer to Paul. He was a good big brother. Hell, he was a good _father. _Paul didn't know how_ that_ had happened— he'd certainly seen the hints of it beginning over Christmas and Easter when he'd observed Harvey and Mike's interactions. But then he'd watched the two of them this weekend and he'd seen things he never thought he'd see from his older brother.

Like the way the Harvey had worked for months to plan this camping trip as a bonding experience for the 3 of them, only to instantly throw it all out the window when Mike had gotten sick, no questions asked. And Donna had told Paul that Harvey had practically ran out of open court to get back to Pearson Hardman when she'd come to find him and tell him the Mike was sick.

But the moment that stuck with him the most was when he'd seen Harvey wipe Mike's tears away when Mike had wept after a nightmare and brokenly begged Harvey not to give him back to the Jensens— and Paul didn't know who the hell the Jensens were but he knew he'd never forgot the anguished expression on his older brother's face at Mike's pain and the way that he'd easily comforted Mike like he'd been doing it his whole life instead of for 9 months. Paul had had to look away; it had seemed like such an intimate moment and he felt like an intruder on the bond between the two of them. And even though Mike's feverish mind might not remember the incident afterwards, Paul would.

Their dad would have been proud.

_But, _Paul thought to himself as he buttered his toast and set about looking around for the Monopoly board so he could entertain Mike for the day before his flight back to Chicago that night, _just because I can concede that Harvey's a good big brother does __**not **__mean that I can't use this picture of the two of them cuddling as blackmail for the rest of my life. _

* * *

**So that's that! I totally made up that quote from the parenting book; I have no clue how to be a parent. Next chapter I think we'll be seeing some 20-year-old Mike (unless I have a sudden change in inspiration for what I want to write next). I welcome any suggestions or requests :D And I'm honored by all the people who have reviewed/favorited/followed after just one chapter. You guys are the best- hopefully I can live up to all of your expectations!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey everyone! I'm so sorry that it's been such a long time; having computer troubles while living in a foreign country isn't exactly conducive to much fic writing. Much thanks go to phoenix on cloud nine for putting up with my daily complaints about my computer's lack of functioning battery XD I originally planned to post a different chapter, one with 20 year old Mike. But that one is currently sitting half-finished on my dead computer, so I wrote this one with 21 year old Mike instead. The time line might be a little blurry because there are things that I was going to explain in the 20 year old chapter that are missing here. But for the sake of this chapter you don't have to know much other than the fact that Mike is 21 and he's a first year associate. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

_All I ever needed was a landline_

_Just in case the powerlines go down_

_All I needed would never be enough for me_

_From "Landline" by Greg Laswell and Ingrid Michaelson_

"Donna, have you seen Mike today?" Harvey asked his secretary, trying not to frown and appear too outwardly concerned about his son's conspicuous absence from the halls of Pearson Hardman.

"No," Donna said shortly, tapping away at her keyboard and not even sparing him a glance. Harvey allowed a puzzled frown to cross his face at Donna's atypical unwillingness to engage in their usual repartee of witty banter.

"What crawled up _your_ cubicle and died?" Harvey asked, knowing that he was playing with fire but hoping it would get him some answers.

Sure enough, Donna's head snapped up from the computer monitor, her eyes blazing with irritation. "Sometimes people are grumpy, Harvey, because they have to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning to make certain that their lazy boss gets his ass out of bed and gets to court on time. And sometimes said ungrateful boss drinks his amazing secretary's precious morning coffee and the poor underappreciated secretary is forced to slave away for the rest of the day in a completely unnatural state of decaffeination."

Harvey blinked at this sudden and unexpected torrent of vitriol and hastily attempted some damage control. "Okay, okay, I get it. You need a coffee break. I'm sorry I drank your coffee—here, forget about rearranging the schedule and go get a coffee on me—"

But Donna apparently wasn't finished. "And what makes the situation even _worse _is when the ungrateful boss' son owes the lovely secretary a coffee but hasn't come in all morning to humbly offer up the owed coffee. And if you don't know who I'm referring to, Harvey, that would be _your _son."

"Why is he only 'my son' when he's done something wrong?" Harvey muttered irritably, checking his watching and frowning when he saw the time. "Louis came in and complained about Mike owing him a revised brief and asked me where he is. Mike hasn't been in at _all _today?"

Donna's wrath seemed to suddenly subside just as quickly as it had come on. "No," she sighed tiredly. "Not that I would know much about it. I've been swamped all morning trying to rearrange all your meetings. Have you tried his phone?"

Harvey nodded wordlessly, feeling the first traces of genuine concern begin to stir and itch beneath the surface of his skin.

"Maybe he's still asleep. It's barely 10 in the morning, Harvey, and Mike's only just out of his teens," Donna suggested reassuringly, her manicured fingers subtly tapping out Mike's phone number on her cell.

She looked up at Harvey when Mike didn't answer, frowning slightly herself now.

"He's never overslept this late before," Harvey pointed out. "Maybe I should go back to the apartment and see if he's okay." He wondered not for the first time if Mike was too young to be working at Pearson Hardman as an associate. Sure, the kid was already 21 and was legally an adult. And yes, okay, he _had_ graduated from Harvard Law at the top of his class after studying there for just one year. But he was still a good 5 or 6 years younger than all the other associates. And just because he was more than capable of handling the heavy intellectual workload didn't mean that he wasn't constantly running himself ragged in his efforts to be the best lawyer he could be and get the partners to notice him.

Donna was right. Mike was only 21 years old—if he were in college right now like most of his peers, he'd probably still be asleep right now. He probably wouldn't have to get up until noon to go to class and then head off to work nights at a pizzeria making minimum wage.

But as it was, Mike was up and off to Pearson Hardman at the crack of dawn most days, sometimes before Harvey even woke up. And he was there until long past dark every night.

And sometimes, Harvey wondered if it was all too much. If he should have made Mike wait a few more years until he was the same age as the other associates before starting to work. God knows the kid would be able to fit in better with his peers if he were a few years older. But Mike had been so excited to start his work as a lawyer; had been dreaming about it for years and years... and so Harvey had given in and given his consent when Jessica had asked his opinion about hiring Mike as one of the first year associates. And Mike was thrilled to be working at Pearson Hardman (even though _Louis _was in charge of all the associates) so it had all worked out. And Harvey didn't regret his choice. Most days, anyway.

But he just..._worried _about the kid sometimes. Mike had thrown himself into his work as an associate with a fervor that Harvey both admired and sometimes despaired of. In his opinion, Mike was missing out on his youth—hell, when Harvey was 21 he'd been hungover most mornings, not sitting in a cubicle poring over legal texts. And he knew that Mike's work ethic would take him far and he was immeasurably proud of the kid's accomplishments. But he was also afraid that Mike was putting too much pressure on himself to be perfect. And Harvey feared that some of that was because Mike still had this unquenchable need to gain Harvey's approval; that deep down he still didn't believe that Harvey would love him all the same regardless of if he was a homeless bum for the rest of his life or the best lawyer in the world. And he didn't know how to tell Mike that he was more than enough just as he was; that Harvey _understood _that Mike was going to make mistakes and have troubles during his first few years in the legal field.

But he tried to show his unconditional support the best that he could. That was why Mike still lived with him at the apartment— the young lawyer had been insistent that he could fend for himself and get his own apartment and live on his own now that he had an adult job. But Harvey had tactfully pointed out that Mike wasn't going to have time to cook for himself or do his own laundry with the crazy hours that he'd be working as an associate, and that most of his friends would live with their parents until they finished college when they were 22. Mike hadn't needed that much convincing after that—he'd agreed to live at home as soon as Harvey had mentioned having to forage for food by himself (just because he was 21 didn't mean he didn't still _eat _like a teenager) but "just til I'm 22, Dad."

And Harvey had left it at that. He was reluctant to admit it, but he was finding it hard to walk the line between friend and father now that Mike was moving into his adult years. Mike had always been incredibly independent, but now he was even more so and Harvey felt like they were going through a slight shift in their relationship as the years slipped by. He didn't know when it was appropriate to intervene and take charge of things and when to let Mike stumble and fall and pick himself up anymore. For the most part he wanted Mike to retain his independence and grow up and learn from his own mistakes. But some part of him still clung to the memory of 14-year-old Mike who watched Harvey's every move and tried to emulate it. Or 18-year-old Mike who had headed off to Harvard and battled with homesickness the entire time he was there. He had already missed the first 14 years of Mike's childhood, and to him it felt like Mike had grown up way too fast. _Had it really been 7 years already? Where had the time gone?_

But at least the fact that Mike lived at the apartment allowed Harvey to make sure that the kid ate and slept (as much as a first year associate could be expected to sleep, anyway). And he usually checked for signs of life in the morning to make sure the kid had gotten up and made it out the door to work—used breakfast dishes in the sink, empty coffee mug, etc. But this morning he'd gotten up extra early to make it to court on time (okay, so Donna had had to call him to wake him up and remind him to get his ass out the door to meet her at court for the pre-trial meeting, but who cared about that?) and he hadn't had time to see if Mike was up or still in bed. Or if Mike was even in the apartment.

And now he didn't know where Mike was.

He was just about to head back into his office to grab his keys to go to the apartment and check up on Mike, when he heard said young lawyer's voice from around the corner, growing louder as he approached Donna's desk. "Morning, Donna," Mike called out cheerfully from down the hallway. "I brought you your coffee; sorry it's late. I'll bring you another tomorrow to make up for it, I promise. Hey, has Harvey noticed—"

"Yes, Harvey _has _noticed the fact that you're showing up for work 2 hours late," Harvey said and Mike winced as he rounded the corner and saw his father standing at Donna's desk.

"Sorry, Harvey," Mike said, sounding genuinely remorseful. He almost always called Harvey 'Harvey' when the two of them were at work. He already had enough trouble fitting in with the other associates, who were all very competitive and jealous of Mike's prodigious talent—the last thing he needed was for it to become common knowledge that Harvey was his adoptive father.

"You and I need to have a little chat," Harvey said neutrally, leading a nervous-looking Mike into his office.

"Look, Harvey, I know that you're a senior partner, but Louis already tore me to shreds and assigned me about 10 days work to be completed by the end of today, so you don't have to worry about lecturing me or punishing me. This isn't really your jurisdiction, and trust me; I'm suffering the consequences for my actions," Mike said, wincing at the bright, natural light flooding through Harvey's office windows. Technically Mike was correct, but Harvey still wanted to figure out the story behind this uncharacteristic truancy.

"Hungover?" Harvey asked drily, recognizing the signs.

"Just a bit," Mike shrugged guiltily and attempted what was probably supposed to be a charming but-you-still-love-me-anyway face but really came out as more of a oh-god-where-are-my-sunglasses-when-I-need-them face.

"So you're late because you went out and got drunk last night?" Harvey asked curiously, thinking about the irony of his earlier musings about Mike's lack of social life.

"Well...I wasn't _that _drunk," Mike said, looking hopefully at Harvey as though he thought this might help his case. "Okay, look—some of my buddies from Harvard called me around midnight to say that they were in town for the night so I went to go meet them at the bar for a drink. I haven't seen them in a few months and they were only here for a little bit and one drink turned into...more than one drink after awhile. And the next thing I know I'm at home waking up at 9:30 in the morning. Then Louis punished me. It was my fault and I'm sorry. End of story."

Harvey felt the corners of his lips turn up slightly as he listened to Mike's familiar rambling. But at the same time, he wondered what to do in this situation—did he play the father card and lecture Mike about going out irresponsibly on a work night? Or did he just let Louis' punishment serve its purpose and say nothing else? After all, Mike was 21 and all his actions had been legal. And he was pleased that Mike was getting out of his cubicle every once in awhile and enjoying himself, even if this incident had interfered with work.

Mike seemed to sense Harvey's internal conflict. "Well? Are you going to lecture me, Harvey?"

Harvey shook his head slowly. "No. You already said yourself that it was your fault and that now you're paying the consequences for your actions. I would just recommend that you think about your little unscheduled lie-in the next time you want to go out on a work night."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You're always going on and on about how I need to get more sleep. And now you lecture me about having a lie-in?"

"Sleeping in after working 70 hours a week is a little different from sleeping in after going out drinking on a Tuesday night," Harvey said wryly. "Really, Mike, I'm not mad. You're an adult, and it's your responsibility to make it into work on time."

Mike looked surprised by Harvey's ambivalence. Had this been two years earlier, he surely would have been on the receiving end of quite a lecture about conscientiousness and punctuality. "Ok. Thanks. Well, if that's all, I'll just be going—"

But Mike's plan to leave was momentarily interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing. He frowned and rummaged through his bag before drawing his cell out.

"Do you mind if I take this call here? I don't want Louis to see me not working and assign me another 1000 pages," Mike asked.

Harvey just waved dismissively and sat down at his desk to work. He tuned out the sound of Mike greeting whoever was on the other line and was just beginning to get absorbed into the contract that he was revising when—

_Crash. _

Mike's cell phone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor of Harvey's office.

Harvey looked up in surprise to see Mike standing in the middle of his office, looking absolutely stricken.

"Mike, what...?" He began, getting to his feet and making his way to stand in front of his son, who was pale and shaking.

Mike open his mouth to say something but no words came out. He cleared his throat. "Grammy," he said, and Harvey felt his heart drop into his stomach.

"Grammy had a heart attack last night," Mike murmured shakily, looking about a second from lapsing into total histrionics. Harvey gently steered him backwards and pushed on his shoulders until he sank down to sit on the couch. "Oh God, what if—"

"Who was that on the phone, Mike?" Harvey interrupted gently, crouching down to be at Mike's eye level.

"Henry Morris," Mike said, his gaze far away. "He said it happened around 5 in the morning. He still doesn't know what the prognosis is..." Mike's hands suddenly grabbed onto the lapels of Harvey's suit. "I need to go to Florida right now, Dad," he said urgently. "I can't just sit here in New York when..."

"Donna—" Harvey began to say, knowing that his secretary was listening.

"Already booked 2 flights to Florida. Plane leaves in 2 hours, so you might want to get a move on," Donna's voice said over the intercom.

_And this is why I pay Donna so much money, _Harvey thought gratefully. "Okay, Mike. Let's go. We'll have to stop at the apartment really quickly and then we'll go to Florida, alright?" He said, keeping his tone of voice gentle. Mike nodded numbly and stood up.

"I'm going to go get my stuff from the associate bull pen," Mike said, his voice sounding oddly detached as he walked away. Harvey frowned. The last thing that Mike needed was to be distancing himself emotionally from the situation. Frankly, he would prefer it if Mike got hysterical and cried because at least he'd be dealing with his feelings on the subject then. _He's probably just in shock, _Harvey thought to himself as he gathered up his things and went to talk to Donna.

He was at least grateful for the small miracle that Mike had brought Donna her coffee before this had all happened, because he had a bad feeling that his secretary was going to have a lot of rescheduling to do over the next few days.

* * *

Mike maintained his neutral, indifferent front the whole plane ride to Florida and all the way to the hospital, and frankly, Harvey found it rather concerning. Mike normally wore his heart on his sleeve, his every single thought and emotion projected through his eyes and his body language. It was one of his greatest struggles as a young lawyer—to develop a good pokerface and not shout his every thought from the mountaintops via his facial expressions.

But now to see him like this, so emotionally controlled and reverted into his own mind in the midst of a family crisis...well, it was disconcerting. Harvey didn't know if Mike was trying to be manly or what, but he spent the entire plane ride staring coolly and expressionlessly out the window, his mouth taut, his face pale, and his eyes bone dry. He wouldn't respond to Harvey's attempts at reassuring him and he seemed completely lost in his thoughts; thoughts that he wouldn't let Harvey draw him out of with small talk and easy conversation.

And Harvey was pretty certain that they weren't happy thoughts.

When they got to the hospital, Mike solemnly greeted a distraught, aggrieved Henry Morris and sank down to sit by him, shoulders slumped and looking far older than 21. Harvey, who cared deeply about Edith but wasn't immediate family in the same way that Mike and Henry Morris were, began trying to emulate Donna. He got the two of them coffee while they were waiting, talked to the nurses to see when they thought there'd be news about Edith (ignoring the grim way the head nurse had shaken her head when he'd asked after Edith Morris), and finally, when he could think of nothing else helpful to do, he sat down to wait with Mike and Henry Morris.

"She'll be okay," Henry Morris spoke up after awhile, placing a hand on Mike's shoulder. His voice was gravelly and sad, and Harvey wondered if Henry was thinking about his first wife, who had died of a stroke a few years before he had met Edith. "She's strong, Mike. And she knows that she's got a lot of people who care about her. She'll fight as hard as she can to stay with us."

And that was when the first cracks in Mike's mask of composure began to appear. Harvey didn't know if Henry Morris noticed—probably not; the elderly man certainly had enough things to preoccupy him at the moment— but Harvey _knew _Mike's body language. Even if he didn't always know how to handle new, adult Mike, he still knew how to read his son's face like an open book.

And at this comment by Henry Morris, Mike began shifting around in his seat, his fingers twitching and clenching slightly and his light blue eyes darkening slightly with what looked like...guilt?

Harvey frowned. He had raised Mike through his teenage years, he certainly knew what Mike's face looked like when he felt guilty. But what would Mike be feeling bad about? He had expected fear, sadness, grief...but not guilt.

"Mike," He stood. "A word, please," he said in a tone that booked no argument.

Mike frowned up at Harvey. "I want to wait here, Harvey," he said, his voice quiet and tight.

But Harvey didn't want to do this in front of Henry Morris, and he knew that Mike didn't either.

"Louis just texted me with a question about the Harley brief," he lied. "Come over here for a minute and talk to me about the bylaws so I can tell Louis what he needs to know."

"Tell Louis that he can take his bylaws and shove them up his—"

"_Mike._"

"Alright, fine," Mike conceded grumpily, clambering wearily to his feet at Harvey's warning tone of voice, suddenly sounding exactly like the teenager that he had been not too long ago.

_And **that **was exactly why he didn't want Mike repressing his emotions like that, it only led to irrational anger, _Harvey thought to himself in exasperation as he walked briskly to the end of the hallway where they could talk privately but still see if the doctor came by with news. Mike shuffled moodily behind, his eyes still dry and his face tight with irritation, guilt etched into the shadows of his eyes.

"What exactly is going through your mind right now?" Harvey asked, trying carefully not to sound accusing. The last thing he needed was for Mike to get defensive.

"I don't want to talk about my feelings, Harvey," Mike fairly growled. "And I know that Louis didn't actually text you."

"Mike, if you think that any of this is your fault for some reason—"

"Why the hell would any of this be _my _fault?!" Mike exploded. "Just because I live in a completely different state and only see Grammy a few times a year doesn't mean that it's my fault that she had a heart attack or anything!" Mike ranted, sounding oddly sarcastic for something that should have been a completely true and unironic statement.

_Ahh. There it was._

"Mike, for someone who passed the bar without studying, that is some of the most flawed deductive reasoning that I've ever heard," Harvey said, glad that Mike was talking now because now he understood. "You _know _that the fact that you live in New York has nothing to do with your grandmother's health."

"But what if it does?" Mike asked, suddenly sounding incredibly young and vulnerable. He turned his body away from Harvey to look out the window, refusing to meet Harvey's gaze. "What if she doesn't know how much she means to me? You heard Henry Morris, he said she'll fight harder to survive if she thinks a lot of people care about her. Does she know what she means to me? I haven't...I haven't called her in ages, Harvey. What if she dies, and I don't get to tell her that I love her and thank her for everything she's done for me? What if she dies and I can't even remember the last time I had a conversation with her?!" Mike's voice rose with emotion and Harvey took a step closer. He grabbed gently Mike by the shoulders and turned him to face him.

"Mike," he said, looking into the young man's eyes seriously, not removing his hands from his son's shoulders. "Your grandmother knows that you love her. Don't you ever doubt that, you hear me? And she_ understands_ that you're busy right now with work. She doesn't blame you or think you love her any less just because you chose to live in New York. She just wants what's best for you, and right now New York is the best place for you to follow your dreams. You'd be miserable if you lived in Florida, and we all know that. So no more guilt, alright? Grammy is going to do the best she can to make it through this for your sake and for Henry Morris's sake."

Mike looked away, his eyes appearing a bit watery now. He bit his lower lip and blinked fiercely. "But last night I wasn't busy with work," He whispered guiltily. "Harvey, I was _drunk_ in a bar while my grandmother was _dying_. What kind of grandson am I? She could have died instantly and Henry Morris could have called to tell me I wouldn't have even remembered it in the morning!"

Harvey smiled. "Mike," he said gently. "There's nothing wrong with going out and having fun with your friends. In fact, I don't think you take _enough _time off to have fun with your friends. Mind you, I'm not saying that you should go out like that on a work night again, but you need to stop beating yourself up. Besides, Mike," he said, steering Mike over to look out the window at the brilliant Florida sunset. The hospital they were at somehow had an incredible view of the ocean, and it was a peaceful sight in the midst of all of this turmoil. "Do you think that your grandmother wants you to sit inside next to the telephone, waiting for a phone call to come to tell you that something bad has happened?"

Mike shook his head slowly, his exhausted gaze following the flight path of a seagull.

"I'm sure she doesn't. Because that's not living, Mike. You of all people know that bad things can happen at any time—look what happened to your parents, for one. But you shouldn't feel guilty for getting out of the house and enjoying yourself. Focus on being young right now, and it'll all fall into place eventually when it's meant to. Because if there's anything certain about life, it's that it's short and bound to end at some point. So don't waste it buried in paperwork in your cubicle or sitting by the phone," Harvey said, thinking about the phone call he'd gotten 8 years ago telling him that his father was dead, and reflecting on all that had changed since then.

Mike nodded silently, his lips pursed. "I get what you're saying, but I just...I don't want Grammy to die," he said, definitely sounding a bit tearful now. "I'm not ready for her to go. I still need her, Dad," he choked out desperately. Harvey was suddenly reminded of the 14-year-old Mike that Harvey had met 7 years ago. And the 11-year-old Mike that he hadn't known, who also hadn't been ready for his parents to go but had had them wrenched away abruptly anyway. His heart ached sharply and he wished that there was some way to fix this situation; to take this burden away from his son. But Edith was 77 years old, and the fact remained that whether it was in one year or ten years, she was going to die eventually, just like everyone else in the world.

"I know, Mike," Harvey said. "But we'll face this together, no matter what happens. You're not alone. Hey, come here," he said, opening his arms to the young lawyer, who came willingly, burrowing his head into Harvey's neck and wetting his suit with his tears, his face and resolve to remain strong and aloof finally crumpling when comfort was offered.

As Harvey held Mike in his arms while he shook with silent sobs, he sent a prayer up to all the higher powers he could think of that Edith would be okay, if only for Mike's sake.

And he realized that for the first time in awhile, he had known exactly how to respond to Mike's needs.

Maybe he could do this parenting-a-young-adult thing after all.

* * *

The didn't have to wait much longer after that.

When Mike had cried himself out, they went back and sat down next to Henry Morris, who kindly pretended not to notice Mike's red eyes or the wet spot on the collar of Harvey's suit.

_How things have changed since the first time that Mike and I met in a hospital 7 years ago, both waiting on news about Edith! _Harvey thought wryly just as the doctor rounded the corner to come talk to them.

Mike jumped to his feet anxiously. "How is she? What's going on? Is she going to be okay—"

The doctor held a hand up to cut off Mike's rapid-fire chain of questions and Harvey's heart dropped into his stomach, afraid that it appeared to be bad news.

"She's stable and she should be fine," the doctor said, smiling slightly and pulling his gloves off. "She needs a lot of rest and a lot of recovery time, but at this point I'd say she'll be okay, barring any sudden unforseen complications."

Mike exhaled shakily with relief and hugged Henry Morris, who was looking like a little boy who'd just been told that he was getting a puppy for Christmas.

"Can we see her?" Mike asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Just for a minute, and then she needs her rest," the doctor said sternly. "One at a time. Who wants to go first?"

"You go, Mike," Henry Morris said instantly. Mike looked uncertain. "Go on, I'm almost 80 years old, I can wait another minute," he said reassuringly, making a shooing gesture until Mike grinned and scrambled happily after the doctor.

"I'm so glad that she's okay," Henry Morris breathed in utter relief when it was just Harvey and him left.

Harvey, who hadn't gotten to say goodbye to his father before his untimely death, was just glad that Mike was getting a second chance with his grandmother. And from the looks of it, Edith would still be around for years yet.

It seemed like the universe, which had cruelly ripped Mike's parents away from him with no warning, was trying to do right by him this time around. Maybe there was such a thing as karma after all.

_Because if anyone deserved good karma_, Harvey thought later that night as he watched Mike kiss his peacefully sleeping grandmother's forehead goodnight, _it was his son._

* * *

They had a conversation a few days after that over breakfast about everything that had happened and everything that was going on in Mike's life.

"You really don't think I should work so much?" Mike asked incredulously when Harvey said that he was officially banning Mike from the office on weekends. "But Dad, you're Harvey Specter. You _always _work! This is hypocritical!"

"Yes, I do work a lot," Harvey said. "But I also have a healthy amount of free time to eat and sleep and do leisure activities and _clean my room,_" he said pointedly and Mike rolled his eyes and mumbled something about his 22nd birthday.

"Alright, fine, I'll lay off the overtime a little. I'm just trying to be a good lawyer," he huffed defensively.

"You already are a good lawyer. The best associate that's come through Pearson Hardman, certainly," Harvey said honestly. "And I'm very proud of you." Mike eyes widened, and Harvey thought to himself that if he had known that Mike obviously needed to hear that, he would have said it a lot sooner.

"You—do you really mean that?"

"No, I just tell that to all my sons who are genius associates," Harvey said, rolling his eyes.

Mike seemed buoyed by this, but then he deflated suddenly. "Do you really think Grammy's going to be okay?" He asked nervously, fidgeting with his breakfast dishes.

"You heard the doctors. As long as she takes it easy and goes to the cardiologist regularly, she should be alright. Plus you're going to go visit her in a few weeks; you'll see that she's right as rain by then," Harvey said, referencing the tickets he'd bought Mike the week prior to go spend more quality time with his grandmother for a long weekend.

"But one day she won't be okay," Mike said quietly, staring at the remains of his waffles.

Harvey nodded, knowing that it was pointless to deny the facts of life. "And when that phone call comes, I'll be here with you."

And even though that didn't make it completely better, it certainly helped to know that he wouldn't be alone.

* * *

**Okay, that turned out kind of angsty at the end and I don't know why. I promise the next chapter with 20 year old Mike will be a lot more cheerful. Maybe if we all do a rain dance my computer will get fixed. Cross your fingers for me ;D And thanks for all your patience, I'll try to post something quicker next time :D Hopefully you all enjoyed it, I feel a bit rusty right now lol**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everyone! I'm back and after much tinkering, my computer is up and running once again :D :D So here's the 20-year-old Mike chapter. It might seem a little out of left field, but this plotline is actually quite relevant to my life right now haha. Timeline stuff that you should know for this chapter and just in general for this universe (if you're familiar with phoenix on cloud nine's Crayons/Lessons verse than this borrows heavily from that :D) :**

**Ages 15-18: Mike did all of his undergrad work at NYU**

**18-19: Mike went to Harvard for law school and graduated after one year **

**19-20: gap year studying abroad**

**20-21: Mike gets hired at Pearson Hardman as an associate**

**Sorry for all the complicated facts, but I just want to make it as un-confusing as possible for all you lovely people. Onward with the chapter!**

* * *

_Oh, come back when you can_

_Let go, you'll understand_

_You've done nothing at all to make me love you less_

_So come back when you can_

_From "Come Back When You Can" by Barcelona_

4 months.

It had been 4 months since Harvey had last seen Mike, and he didn't know if he could handle waiting another 3 months like he was supposed to before he could go see his son.

"Don't be ridiculous, Harvey," Donna told him when he casually mentioned that it would be weird not having Mike around for the holidays that year. "What are you going to do— fly over there and go gallivanting about Europe like a madman to find him? We have no clue where he is right now."

"All I said was that it's weird that Mike won't be home for Christmas this year—I don't recall ever mentioning anything about flying over there, Donna; quit jumping to conclusions," Harvey huffed defensively— just because he'd _thought _it to himself didn't mean that Donna had the right to pick on him; he hadn't said it out loud!

"Well, you might not have said it out loud, but I know you well enough to know when there's a stupid idea brewing around in that perfectly-coiffed head of yours, Harvey," Donna said, sighing fondly at her boss' pathetic transparency when it came to all things Mike. "And this is a stupid idea. Mike's young—he wants to get out and explore the world, and I think you should let him. After all, there's a lot out there and it's a Friday night—he could be dancing with a beautiful Spanish woman or climbing a mountain in Switzerland or drinking beer at a pub in Ireland right now for all we know."

"Thank you, Donna, for that reassuring reminder that my twenty-year-old son is on a completely different continent running around getting drunk and sleeping in cheap hostels. Really, thank you; that makes me feel so much better," Harvey said sarcastically, turning the page of the bylaws that he was proofreading with more force than necessary and wondering why on earth he'd ever agreed to allow Mike go abroad for a year. Sure, it was a great experience for Mike—the young man had graduated from Harvard in June and had decided to take a year off and travel before settling down to apply for jobs as an associate. From the start, Harvey hadn't been crazy about the idea— a year was a long time and the world was a big place. But when Mike, the little genius, graduated from Harvard Law School after just a year of studying there, Harvey had been too pleased and proud to refuse him anything.

So Mike had left for Asia in August and had been there until late September. Then he had gone to England, where he had set up his home base near Oxford (Rachel and Harold, who were both undergrad students at Harvard, were doing a year abroad there). Since he had already taken the bar exam, he didn't have anything scholastic to do while he was over there and he didn't want to just sit around all day while Harold and Rachel were in class. So he'd gotten a work visa and somehow gotten himself hired at a pub near Oxford, much to Paul's utter delight and Harvey's dismay (he feared having a young alcoholic on his hands by the time Mike came back). He was traveling all around Europe with Rachel and Harold and other friends during the weekends and, by all accounts, was having a ball.

But it wasn't much fun for Harvey, sitting at home in New York and wondering where Mike was and if he was taking care of himself. Still, he knew that his reasons for not wanting Mike to leave were selfish—he had to allow Mike to figure out his identity and explore the world and gain his independence; it was all a natural part of growing up. But it had been hard on both of them— Harvey sometimes forgot that he had only known Mike for 6 years, because most of the time it felt like they'd lived together forever—but the truth was that Mike had had fourteen years less with Harvey than most of his peers had had with their parents, and that _did _have an impact on things in their relationship. Mike didn't feel the same desire as most of his friends did to challenge the authority of their parents—he and Harvey rarely fought and had a far more friendly relationship that most of Mike's peers did with their parents. Mike didn't feel the need to put lots of distance between himself and Harvey either—all of his friends had wanted to go as far away from home as possible for college, but Mike had been reluctant to move 3 hours away to go to Harvard, and although he'd never said anything, Harvey knew he'd been pretty homesick the first few months at law school. After all, he'd done all of his undergrad work at NYU right here in New York, where everything was familiar and safe. Going to Harvard for law school for 9 months last year had been a big step. And going abroad for 9 months this year had been an even bigger one.

On one level, Harvey knew that Mike was completely fine and that he was having the time of his life—he had received numerous postcards and pictures from the twenty-year-old from some incredible places in Europe and Asia, each of them enthusiastically detailing the adventures that he was having with his friends.

And he had seen with his own eyes that Mike was healthy whenever the two of them managed to Skype (which wasn't very often—since Mike was moving around so much, it was difficult for him to find places with good internet and with the time difference it was hard to coordinate their schedules). But he'd Skyped with Mike just last weekend (Mike had been sitting in a McDonalds with free Wi-Fi just outside of London, waiting to catch a train back to Oxford) and he had seemed fine—a little thin and a little tired, but his smile had been genuine and he had been bubbling over with enthusiasm to tell Harvey all about his recent trip to Paris.

But on another level, part of him would _always _worry about Mike, whether or not he was off on a wild Euro-trip or sitting in a lecture at Harvard or sleeping in his bedroom at the apartment. It was just that his worry was heightened somewhat when Mike was off on the other side of the world—there was so much that could go wrong, and Harvey hated not being there to pick Mike up when he stumbled—what if he ran out of money while traveling and got stuck somewhere? What if he got lost in a city where he didn't speak the language? What if he got mugged or robbed?

But, he supposed, there were some things that Mike needed to learn for himself. And to tell the truth, there was some benefit to Mike taking a year off before working—Harvey didn't want him starting work as a lawyer _too _early. Mike tended to throw himself into things passionately, and Harvey knew that Mike would be running himself absolutely ragged as an associate next year when he came back to the US and started working (hopefully at Pearson Hardman). Harvey was in no rush for _that _to happen—Mike had his whole life in front of him, and he might as well use the time while he was young and not tied down by work to travel and see the world instead of burying himself under legal textbooks and killing himself in an attempt to become, as he said, "the best damn lawyer that Harvey had ever seen." That would all come later—Harvey wanted Mike to make the most of his youth.

So he had bravely allowed his 19-year-old to leave the country for 9 months— and as it turned out, 9 months was a _very _long time— after all, his 19-year-old was now a 20-year-old as of October. It had been 4 months since Mike had left for Asia, and this was the longest that they'd ever gone without seeing each other in the past 6 years. Even when Mike had been at Harvard last year they'd seen each other at least every month or two—Harvey occasionally had business out in that direction, and he and Mike had been able to meet up for dinner a few times throughout the year when he was in that neck of the woods. Not to mention that Mike had been home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break last year. This year he hadn't been home for Thanksgiving. Now it was almost Christmas, and Mike wasn't coming home for that either—instead, Harvey was going to have to wait until spring break. He was going to England at the end of March for two weeks to visit Mike, but that seemed ridiculously far away from the time being and Harvey didn't _want_ to wait another 3 months.

And so he had entertained the completely innocent idea of possibly flying out there now to meet up with Mike for Christmas, but now Donna was shooting him down. Maybe she was right—maybe he _should _leave Mike be. Just because Harvey wasn't ready for this intense separation from Mike didn't mean that Mike wasn't ready for it.

But the apartment had seemed so _empty _the past few months, and especially now that it was almost Christmas. He had half-heartedly decorated for the holiday, partially because of Donna's urging and partially because it just felt too weird not to decorate after 6 years of having a tree and lights.

But something was definitely still missing— the lights were there and the tree was there, but it wasn't the same as all the other years, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. But still, that was no excuse for Harvey to be getting all mopey and depressed. Mike was an adult, he was an adult, and one Christmas apart wouldn't kill either of them.

"You're going soft, Harvey," Harvey muttered to himself in frustration as he forced himself to return to his work, scowling at his reflection in his sleeping computer screen.

"And crazy too," Donna's voice jerked him out of his reverie and he startled so badly that he knocked his computer and woke it up, the monitor blinking to life. "Talking to yourself _and _forgetting that I'm still in the room? That's rookie stuff, Harvey," Donna said, shaking her head in mock sadness.

"I'm cutting your Christmas bonus in half," Harvey said gruffly as he turned back to his computer, determined to get _something _accomplished with his valuable, highly billable time. Donna rolled her eyes at the empty threat and drifted back to her desk to finish up her work for the afternoon.

It required a lot more effort than Harvey was willing to admit to to force himself to close up the internet tabs that he had opened to search for flights to Europe.

* * *

The morning of Christmas Eve found Harvey sitting at home alone with nothing to do, wishing he had ignored Donna's warnings and just gone to Europe anyway.

Said secretary was visiting her sister for the afternoon, and Paul and his wife Alicia wouldn't arrive until that evening. And Mike…well, supposedly Mike was spending Christmas in Florence, Italy and he had promised to Skype Harvey the day after Christmas when he got back to Oxford.

Edith and Henry Morris had decided to stay in Florida that year for the holidays since Mike wasn't around to visit in New York, so that was another two people who were usually around that weren't there this year.

So Harvey sat next to his sparsely decorated tree, nursed a scotch, and attempted to force himself into some semblance of Christmas cheer.

He was at the point where he was very seriously beginning to consider going into the office to work for awhile when his phone rang. He glanced at the caller I.D.—if it was Donna, then he didn't want to answer it and have her force him to talk about his feelings about Mike's absence— and was surprised to see that it was Jessica, of all people, calling him. She sometimes stopped by his apartment on Christmas Day for a drink when everyone was there, but she'd never called him on Christmas Eve before.

"Hello?" He said upon answering the call.

"Harvey, good, I'm glad you answered," came Jessica's calm, cool voice over the phone. "I'm afraid Louis has made a grave error on the Santos paperwork and I'm going to have to ask you to go into the office this afternoon to fix it. I'm sorry to ask but Mr. Santos is absolutely frantic and he's about to go hunt Louis down and—"

Harvey sighed. "Don't worry, Jessica. I'll fix it. Consider the matter taken care of," he said, rolling his eyes in amazement at Louis' utter incompetence. It was a bit strange that Louis should have messed this case up since it was all about number-crunching and that was Louis' specialty. But he supposed that if anyone was going to mess up on their specialty, it _would _be Louis.

To be completely honest, though, he was a bit relieved to have something to occupy him for the afternoon. At least this way he could bury himself in his work and not think about the fact that Mike's bed was empty and that there were considerably fewer presents under the tree this year.

He headed into the office and spent the afternoon hard at work, completely immersed in the mess that was the Santos financials. It was giving him a headache; how Louis had managed to mess up this badly was completely beyond him. And he was starting to remember why he had hated math and finance in college.

But he dutifully worked until his phone rang at 6 o'clock and startled him out of his mess of calculations.

"Hello?" He said, not bothering to look at the caller I.D.

"Hey, Harv. Just calling to let you know that Alicia and I have landed in New York," Paul's voice said over the line.

"Hi, Paul," Harvey said, rubbing at his temples. "Look, this isn't a great time; I'm actually trying to finish up some work at the office—"

"Oh, come on, Harv. It's Christmas Eve and I know you miss Mike but that's no excuse to go locking yourself up in that big glass box you call an office to distract yourself from your girly emotions. Get your ass to your apartment and we'll meet you there in half an hour once we get our bags."

"Paul—"

"Harvey, Alicia and I didn't fly all the way from Chicago to New York on Christmas Eve—the most stressful flying day of the year, mind you— to sit in your empty apartment. Plus," Paul's voice brightened, "I just got you the greatest present here in the airport; you're going to love it," he said coaxingly, as though trying to convince Harvey that he would love it.

"Why are you buying me airport presents?" Harvey asked, wincing as he imagined all the terrible things that Paul could have bought him—a New York City paperweight? A romance novel from one of the airport bookstores? An overpriced crappy cup of coffee?

"Because I forgot to buy you a present in Chicago, obviously," Paul said bluntly, and Harvey could hear someone laughing in the background. "Now come on, we'll be at your apartment in half an hour. You'll love the gift, I swear on Mike's life," Paul said, substituting 'Mike's life' in for 'my mother's life,' no doubt because their mother's life was such a sensitive topic.

"Paul Oliver Specter, don't you dare swear things on my son's life—" Harvey started sternly before he heard Paul's laughter and then the line went dead.

He began packing his work up since he supposed he _did _owe it to Paul and Alicia to spend time with them since they'd come all the way out here. Or at the very least he owed it to Alicia, because she was actually nice and he liked her. Paul, on the other hand…..

He headed back to his apartment, resigning himself to a rough 48 hours acting sociable and playing the polite host to the friends and family. He had never enjoyed hosting parties before, but it was an especially un-thrilling prospect this year. For some reason it was just easier to bear when Mike was there, running around and trying to feed and help everyone, his tie hopelessly crooked and his hair messy from running his hands through it and his shoelaces perpetually untied.

As he drove back to the apartment, Christmas music playing softly in the background and snow falling lightly and silently outside, he wondered where Mike was right now. Was he already in Italy? Was he flying there? Or was he still in Oxford with Rachel and Harold? Was he happy and safe? Was he missing home? Was he thinking about Harvey and his grandmother and everyone else on the other side of the world?

He parked the car and took a deep breath. _You can do this, Harvey. Toughen up, _he told himself before climbing out and heading upstairs. He thought he saw a car in the parking lot that looked an awful lot like the old Mustang that Henry Morris drove but he brushed it off as an odd coincidence.

His apartment door was unlocked and the lights in the foyer were on, although it was oddly silent inside. He figured that Paul and Alicia were already there, but it was hard to imagine his little brother just sitting quietly and behaving himself in his older brother's apartment.

Hoping beyond hope that Paul hadn't managed to set anything on fire or damage the apartment _too _badly, he headed forward into the living room.

"Paul? Alicia?" He called as he kicked off his shoes and hung up his jacket on the way into the next room.

"We're in here, Harv!" Paul's voice called. "We've got your present in here but it's not wrapped so close your eyes, and no peeking! I'll know if you peek!"

"Or you could stop being 5 years old and just hide the present away until tomorrow morning," Harvey suggested sarcastically.

"Nope. It's better to give you this one now, trust me. It won't keep til tomorrow in wrapping paper. Come _on, _Harvey. I'm hungry," Paul wheedled. Harvey shook his head in exasperation but closed his eyes, figuring it was best to just get this over with.

"Alright, fine. Have it your way. But if this gift involves the Chicago White Sox in any way, so help me god I will—"

He had just crossed the threshold into the living room, his eyes dutifully shut, when someone who was presumably Paul clamped a hand over Harvey's mouth.

"You're much more fun when you don't talk," Paul's voice said next to him. "Okay, open your eyes on the count of three."

There was a moment of silence.

"Are you going to count to three?" Harvey asked dryly, the sound muffled by Paul's hand in front of his mouth.

"Oh, right. Sorry. 1—2….3!" Paul exclaimed dramatically, pulling his hand away from Harvey's mouth with a flourish.

Harvey opened his eyes and the first thing that he noticed was that there were suddenly a _lot _more people in his apartment than he had been expecting. Way more than just Alicia and Paul.

The room was dim, lit up only by the lights on the Christmas tree. It was mellow and picturesque with the snow swirling around in the background outside, and as Harvey squinted through the relative darkness, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Donna was there, as well as Edith and Henry Morris. He hoped they hadn't come up all the way from Florida just to keep him company over the holidays, but he was warmed by the thought all the same. That would explain why he'd seen their car in the parking lot.

Alicia was sitting on the couch, and Harvey noticed that there was someone else standing, partially obscured by the Christmas tree. The figure stepped forward when he noticed Harvey's gaze travel in that direction.

"Merry Christmas, Dad!" a familiar voice said, the words woven together with care and warmth and the sound of home.

_Crash. _

The glass of scotch that Paul had pressed into his hands at some point slipped from his hands and shattered on the floor.

"_Mike?!"_He breathed incredulously, stepping forward cautiously, his heart racing.

"Yeah, it's me," Mike said, laughing. "Watch out for the glass shards," he cautioned, and then he was suddenly in Harvey's arms, smelling of cold and fitting just as perfectly into Harvey's embrace as he always had.

"I— you're actually _here? _How—" Harvey sputtered incoherently, drawing back to look at Mike properly. He looked older and far more mature than Harvey remembered, and beyond exhausted from travelling. His hair was a bit too long and his face was scruffy. But he was _home._

"I think you're right, Paul, Harvey _does _like your gift," Mike said, grinning at his uncle.

Paul laughed. "I knew he would. Told you so, Harv," Paul exclaimed gleefully. "You should have seen your face when you noticed he was here!"

"Wait, were you all in on this?" Harvey asked in shock and bewilderment. This set off a collective round of laughter between everyone gathered in the apartment.

"Of _course _we were, Harvey," Donna said. "You almost messed it all up by trying to buy tickets to go surprise Mike in Europe. Thank god I managed to talk you out of that one."

Harvey felt his eyes widen as several strange little things that had been niggling at the back of his mind for days suddenly made a lot of sense. "Wait a second—the Santos financials?"

Donna laughed again. "That was just a way to get you out of the apartment for the afternoon so that we could smuggle Mike in here. Louis has never even looked at that case, it's going on his desk after the holidays. But Jessica was more than willing to help us out by calling you. We were all getting sick of you moping around without Mike," she explained sagely, and Harvey resisted the urge to face-palm at what an idiot he'd been. He should have put all these pieces together much sooner. Of _course _Louis wouldn't have messed up a financial case that badly. And he felt a little embarrassed too—he hadn't been _that _obvious when it came to missing Mike, had he? He thought about voicing this question, but had the sneaking suspicion that it would just earn him another round of laughter from the assembled group.

"It all worked out really well, actually," Paul chimed in. "Mikey's plane landed right before mine and Alicia's so we snagged him from the airport and brought him back here just after Edith and Henry Morris got here from Florida. And voila, here we all are."

"How long have you been planning this?" Harvey asked, his hands still resting on Mike's shoulders.

"About a month or so," Mike said. "Being abroad is great, really, but after being gone for three months I started thinking about how lonely the holidays would be alone in Europe. My boss said I could take as much time off as I needed and so I've got two weeks before I've got to be back. I hope you're not mad, the plane tickets were really expensive, but I just wanted—"

Whatever he had wanted was cut off as Harvey roughly tugged him back into an embrace.

"Don't say another word about the tickets. This was worth it, no matter how expensive it was," He said in a low voice in Mike's ear.

Mike was beaming when they broke apart. "Merry Christmas, Dad," he said quietly.

"Happy birthday, Mike," Harvey replied. Mike frowned at the apparent non sequitur, looking mildly concerned for Harvey's mental health.

"Er, Harvey, you do know that that's the wrong occasion?" He asked.

"No it's not. Your birthday was in October, and I haven't seen you since August. So Happy Birthday."

Mike laughed, although it was the kind of laugh that said dad-you're-such-a-weirdo. He slung an arm around Harvey's shoulders, suddenly looking a lot more serious. "Love you, Dad," he said quietly.

"Love you too, Mike," he responded, his throat feeling oddly tight. It was rare that they actually said these words out loud, but tonight Harvey wouldn't mind shouting it from the mountaintops after 4 months apart.

He realized that he was suddenly feeling a lot more festive than he had 5 minutes prior. He allowed himself to be drawn into Edith's embrace and then visited with Henry Morris before moving on to catch up with his brother's life, Mike never straying far from his side.

That night, Harvey felt like everything in his life was complete for the first time in 4 months.

* * *

The two weeks that he had with Mike flew by, as Harvey had known they would.

But still, he hadn't anticipated it going by _this _quickly. It was somehow already the day that Mike was flying back to Europe, and the young man was scrambling around and frantically trying to pack all of his possessions that had gotten scattered throughout the apartment over the course of the past 2 weeks.

"Dad, have you seen my—"

"Here you go, Mike," he said, handing the young lawyer his phone charger.

"Thanks, but I was actually looking for my—"

"And this too," Harvey said dryly, passing over Mike's favorite sweatshirt.

"Huh, I hadn't even thought of that. But hey, have you seen my—"

"Yes, here's your passport," Harvey said, handing the final item.

Mike heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay, I think that's everything. Grammy and Henry should be here any minute to pick me up," he said, struggling into his jacket. Edith and Henry Morris were leaving for the long drive back to Florida today, and they'd promised to swing by and take Mike to the airport on their way out of the city.

Harvey nodded, not entirely certain if he was ready for this to be happening. Now he had to wait another 3 months to see Mike again.

As if reading Harvey's thoughts, Mike suddenly sobered. "Bye, Dad. It was really good to be home. I'll miss you," he said, looking away and chewing on his lower lip. "I'm excited to be going back, though, and I can't wait til you visit and I can show you everything and everyone I've met." He brightened at this and struggled to lug his suitcase out to the hallway, glancing around the apartment one last time with a slightly wistful smile.

"Bye, Mike. Take care of yourself, okay?" He said, drawing Mike into a brief, manly embrace. He wanted to shout _you're not allowed to leave! _with every fiber of his being but he didn't. _Just let him go, Harvey, _he told himself. _He'll come back when he can. _

"You take care of yourself too, Dad," Mike said seriously. "I know you miss me, but there's no need to go around burying yourself in your work for 20 hours a day. Take it easy. I'll see you in a few months, okay?"

They heard a honking noise outside and both knew that it was Edith and Henry Morris.

"Well, I guess that's my ride. Bye, Dad," Mike said one last time, the cheer in his voice seeming a bit forced. "Can't wait to see you in March!"

"Bye," Harvey said quietly as Mike began pulling his suitcase down the hallway, away from Harvey and away from home. He suddenly looked so grown up to Harvey, and he found himself missing the scrawny, plucky fourteen-year-old who had lugged a suitcase into this same apartment six years earlier for the first time when he'd come to live with Harvey.

"Mike—" he called out, not sure of what exactly he wanted to say. Mike turned around and looked back at Harvey for a long minute before letting go of his suitcase and running back and throwing his arms around Harvey for one last hug.

"I'll miss you," Mike said, his voice muffled by the collar of Harvey's shirt.

"Miss you too," Harvey said, his voice suddenly strong and certain as he realized what he needed to say. "But you're going to go get on that plane and go back to Europe and finish having your adventures while you're young and you have the opportunity. Don't regret being away from home, we'll all still be right here waiting when you get back."

These words seemed to give Mike the strength that it took to walk down the hallway and down and out to the car. With a final wave, he disappeared into the elevator.

Harvey instantly felt a sense of loss when Mike was out of his eyeline, but he knew that he was doing the right thing by letting Mike go. After all, they'd made it 4 months already. 3 months til March wasn't such a long time, and then they'd take it from there as each day came.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he realized he'd just gotten a text from Mike.

_Can't wait to see you in March! You'll have to visit me at the pub when I'm working on St. Pat's Day, I make great Irish car bombs now:P_

He groaned as he let himself back into the apartment.

Come to think of it, maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to let his twenty-year-old son loose on a continent where he could legally drink.

But at least it could lead to some interesting stories and blackmail opportunities in the future. He'd definitely have to charge his camera before his trip to England.

* * *

**So that's that :D I know it was a bit random, but hopefully you all enjoyed reading the reunion little scene as much as I enjoyed writing it (studying abroad has turned me into such a sentimental sap). Once again, I just want to thank everyone for their kind reviews, favorites, and follows. You guys are the greatest. I'm coming up on finals season, so I don't know how much time I'll have for writing in the next few weeks, but I'll do my best. A lot of people have been asking for a chapter about Mike's time at Harvard, so I think that's what I'll be working on now. Until next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi everyone! Sorry that I dropped off the face of the earth for awhile- I've been backpacking since late May and just got home, so I haven't really had steady internet access for quite some time. But I'm really excited to catch up with the fandom again, and can't wait til season 3 starts in like...9 days now :D Thanks for your patience. **

**Also this chapter is specially dedicated to phoenix on cloud nine as a belated birthday present. Happy birthday again, El! Hope you enjoy this guy :D Thanks for being a great friend *heart* **

**Mike's age in this chapter: 18**

* * *

_There may come a time you just can't seem to find your place_

_And for every door you open up, it seems like you get two slammed in your face_

_That's when you need someone, someone that you can call_

_And when all your faith is gone, it feels like you can't go on_

_Let it be me. _

_From "Let It Be Me" by Ray Lamontagne_

* * *

Harvey was extremely tired.

He had been absolutely swamped the past few weeks because everybody suddenly wanted something from him (as they very damn well should; he wasn't the best closer in New York for nothing—but still, it _was_ getting a bit excessive) —the Newton bank wanted to merge with the Sonnefields, one of Jessica´s prized clients had a teenage son who had gotten himself mixed up in some petty legal trouble and it was Harvey's job to make it go away, and he was currently trying to woo 3 different clients.

He loved his job; really, he did. But that didn't mean that he wasn't extremely relieved to finally make it home Wednesday night and throw on some sweats and crawl into bed, ready to get a full 8 hours of sleep for the first time in ages and recharge for the two days that remained in the week from hell.

This weighty, mind-numbing exhaustion was the reason that he almost didn't answer his phone when it rang in the middle of the night and roused him from his precious minutes of REM sleep. It took him a couple of rings to regain full consciousness, and he came awake with a muffled groan and a series of oaths muttered under his breath.

Blinking eyelids that weighed more than sandbags, he squinted through the darkness at the greenish glow of his alarm clock. 2:08. Who the _hell_ was calling him at 2:08 on a Wednesday night? There was going to be absolute hell to pay if it was an incompetent associate or Louis calling him with a stupid paperwork question.

As the ringing continued, he debated answering or not. Maybe that client's son had gotten himself landed in jail this time, in which case it was probably best to deal with it now—but then again, maybe it was just a bunch of kids playing a prank.

Even as he thought this, he knew that he had to answer it or he wouldn't be able to fall peacefully back to sleep—it could be Mike calling for some reason, and he didn't want to miss it if it were something important. This phenomenon was what Donna had cheerfully nicknamed Harvey's "daddy-sense tingling" (it made Harvey cringe every time when she said it; after all, Mike was far more like Peter Parker in personality than Harvey would ever be), and despite the fact that Harvey hated Donna's descriptive choices, he couldn't deny that he worried about the teenager living all alone in a little apartment by Harvard, and he wouldn't be able to sleep well if Mike was in trouble and he didn't answer the kid's call.

So Harvey wearily pushed himself into a sitting position and pressed the "answer" button, hoping that if it was a telemarketer they'd at least announce that quickly so he could hang up and go back to sleep.

"Hello?" He said, his voice croaky and grumpy from sleep.

"Dad?"

Harvey was suddenly very glad he'd decided to answer, and he was also suddenly far more awake than he'd been before. He found that he was already on his feet and rummaging around for a pair of shoes and jeans before Mike could say anything else.

But the thing was, Mike didn't _need_ to say anything else, because Harvey could instantly tell from the tight, strained tone of Mike's voice on that one little word that something was very wrong.

"Mike? What's going on, kid?" He said quickly, grabbing a pair of mismatched socks from his dresser and jamming them on his feet.

"Harvey," Mike said, his voice sounding a little wobbly now. "They…" he heard Mike hitch a breath and tried to recall the last time he'd seen or heard the eighteen-year-old sound so tearful or rattled. "They had a knife. They took all my stuff—my computer's gone."

Harvey felt his blood run cold, and he hurried into the kitchen to grab his wallet and keys and jacket. "Who had a knife, Mike? Where are you at right now? Have you called the police?" He tried to keep his tone gentle and calm, as both of them panicking right now would help nobody. He tried to focus on the fact that Mike had said '_had_' a knife instead of the present tense '_have_' a knife, but really he just didn't want Mike anywhere near anyone with a sharp weapon, past tense or present.

"I was walking home from the library late at night and they just… popped out from behind an alleyway and jumped me"—another slightly tearful sounding hitch of breath that made Harvey's chest ache—"and there were 4 of them and it was just me and I couldn't do anything because one of them covered my mouth and held a knife to my neck and said if I yelled for help they'd slit my throat and then they took all my stuff." Mike rambled, and Harvey made the snap decision to take the stairs down to the parking garage instead of the elevator. The stairs were faster, and the sooner he got himself to Harvard and could see Mike with his own eyes, the better.

"Okay," Harvey said, making his voice as soothing as possible, knowing that a rambley and hysterical Mike reacted well to gentleness, especially after his experiences in foster care with harsh guardians. "Are you alright, Mike? Did they hurt you?"

"N-no," Mike said, and Harvey thought he could hear Mike's teeth chattering. Damn. The last thing that the kid needed was to go into shock. "Just bruised me up a little bit. I'm okay," Mike said, and Harvey felt a surge of mutinous rage that anyone would dare lay a hand on his son in a violent manner. He swore then that he'd do whatever it took to ensure that the four people that had attacked Mike made it into a courtroom where Harvey himself was the prosecutor.

"Okay. Where are you right now, Mike?" He said, once again making sure to keep his voice even as he unlocked his car door and turned the key in the ignition, revving the car to life.  
"I'm at a payphone outside the library," Mike sniffled. "But the library closed so I can't go inside for help. I called the police and they're on their way, so I should be okay," Mike said, and it would have been a lot more convincing that he'd "be okay" had his voice not risen at the end of the phrase and the sniffling on the other end not intensified significantly.

"Hey, it's alright to be upset right now, Mike," Harvey said, wondering when he, the ultimate hardass, had developed the ability to use this gentle of a tone of voice. Maybe he should just quit his job as a lawyer and begin reading children's bedtime books on tape from here on out. "You've been through a really rough ordeal tonight, but you're going to be okay now. You did the right thing by calling the police, and I'll be there as soon as possible. You're safe now, buddy."

Apparently the use of the word "buddy" was a bit too much for Mike to handle, because Harvey heard the beginnings of a first real sob on the other line and stepped on the gas a little harder, completely ignoring the speed limit signs flashing by his windows.

"You don't have to come all the way out here, Harvey," Mike choked out. "I'm okay; I can handle it. I don't know why I'm so freaked out,"—a watery laugh—"I think it's just a weird adrenaline thing and I didn't want to bother you in the middle of the night, but I just needed to hear your voice—"

"Mike," Harvey said firmly, wanting to put a stop to this nonsense. "I'm already on the road heading to Harvard as fast as I can. This is non-negotiable. I need to see you to make sure that you're okay, and I think you could use a visit from me too right now."

There was a brief second of silence before Mike heaved what sounded like a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Harvey," he began to say before his voice was drowned out by sirens in the background. "The police are here now." He announced unnecessarily and Harvey felt himself let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. Now he knew that Mike would be in good hands for the time being until he could get there himself.

"I think you're going to have to hang up now, kid," Harvey said ruefully, not wanting to cut off contact with Mike when he was so upset but understanding that the police and medics needed to do their job to help Mike.

"Okay," Mike said weakly, suddenly sounding much younger than eighteen. "You'll be here soon?"

"As soon as I can," Harvey promised. "I'll meet you at the police station, okay? Are you going to be okay with the police there now?"

"Yeah," Mike said, his voice sounding a little bit more steady. Harvey relaxed further, grateful that Mike was such a tough kid and a strong person. He'd be okay once he got over the shock and adrenaline and terror of almost being killed. Harvey would make sure of it. "I'll be fine. Thanks for coming."

"Anytime, Mike," he said. "You know you can call me anytime." His voice might have gone a bit sappy suddenly, but the realization that Mike could have been killed in an alleyway at college while Harvey slept peacefully at home in New York was a chilling revelation that he had a feeling was going to keep him up a lot of nights in the near future.

"Bye, Dad. See you soon." Mike whispered. And then the line went dead and Harvey was left in silence with the long road ahead of him; a road that seemed to stretch endlessly on to Harvard, putting miles of distance between where he was currently and where he needed to be by his son's side.

* * *

As Mike sat and let the medic clean the cuts and scrapes covering his face and neck, idly swinging his legs against the examining table that they had conveniently tucked away in the back of the police station, he vaguely wondered if Dr. Miklos would fail him out of his Advanced Ethics class. The medic, a middle-aged man with an impressive mustache that hid his mouth so that it was impossible to tell if he was smiling or frowning, had given Mike some pretty heavy painkillers after he finished giving his statement. And he could _definitely_ feel that they'd begun to take effect, that drowsy, dopey feeling beginning to overtake his senses and cloud over his thoughts.

But that would be bad if he failed Dr. Miklos' class. He was notorious for being Harvard Law's toughest and strictest professor and _always _found something to criticize in every paper and every answer given in class. Even though Mike was one of the students that he criticized the least, he was still a real stickler for not playing favorites and would have no sympathy for Mike, mugged or not. He'd probably just say something about how a good lawyer was always prepared, regardless of the circumstances, and chuck Mike right out of the lecture hall if he showed up to class tomorrow (or was it today already?) without turning in the 50 page paper that was due that day. The paper that he had just finished writing at the library a few hours prior. Granted, his eidetic memory meant that he remembered every word that he had written, but it was almost 5 in the morning, he was slightly (okay, maybe _very_) high on pain meds, and he didn't have a computer anymore since it had been stolen. So it didn't seem likely that he was going to be able to replicate the 50 page ethics paper in time for his 8 o'clock lecture. Which meant that he was probably going to fail.

It was kind of an odd thought to entertain—Mike had never failed _anything _academic before, had never even come _close_ to failing. He wondered if Harvey would be disappointed. What if he failed out of Harvard? He had a sudden vision of himself spending the rest of his life working as a janitor at Pearson Hardman, being forced to follow Louis around and sweep up all the papers that he threw at the associates or on the ground for dramatic effect when he was angry. Louis threw a lot of papers at the associates, so Mike would probably get in a decent day's work. He found himself giggling a bit at this mental image, and was dimly aware of the fact that it was an odd thing to giggle at. _Why was he here again?_

"Well, I'm glad to see that you're able to find some humor in the situation," a familiar voice said wryly from the doorway.

This just made Mike laugh harder. "Dad!" He shouted jubilantly, hopping down off the table and hurrying over to throw his arms around Harvey, still chuckling at nothing in particular. He was pretty sure that he had been limping before, and wondered at the fact that he was now walking without any pain…must have been whatever the medic gave him. Now he felt really good. Kinda floaty and fuzzy, but good. Smart man, that medic.

"Good to see you!" Mike exclaimed after stepping out of the embrace that he had drawn Harvey into. He grabbed Harvey's hand and gave him a firm handshake. "Really good to see you around these parts, old chap."

Harvey looked a bit bemused as he gazed down at his hand, which Mike was still pumping cheerfully with an iron grip. He gave Mike a once-over, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips thinning as he took in the various visible scrapes and bruises that littered Mike's face and torso (when had he taken his shirt off anyway? He had no memory of that.), his gaze lingering in particular on the thin, shallow cut across Mike's throat from where the knife had slipped a little against his throat. Suddenly looking a bit pale, Harvey used the grip that Mike still had his hand in to pull Mike over to a plastic chair and usher him to sit.

Mike found himself oddly relieved to sit down again. He was tired now, his limbs numb and his head heavy. He could hear Harvey talking to the medic, but what they were saying wasn't making much sense. His head lolled against the wall and he felt his eyes drift shut as he listened to the familiar, comforting timbre of Harvey's voice and the voice of the mustached medic.

"—doesn't do very well with painkillers, we found _that _one out when he got his wisdom teeth out last year—"

"—should be okay by tomorrow…just bruising and some cuts, no concussion…the detective will call you if anything comes up…"

And then Harvey's voice was much closer to Mike. "—c'mon, Mike, let's get you home." Harvey was murmuring by Mike's ear, helping him stand. Mike swayed slightly on his feet as he struggled to multitask—standing _and _opening his eyes simultaneously was proving to be a lot of work in the middle of the night after pain meds and a traumatic mugging experience.

Harvey was pulling something over his head then, and it took Mike a minute to realize that it was his t-shirt, and that Harvey was essentially helping him get dressed like he was a toddler who didn't quite have the motor skills to find the right holes for his arms in his shirt. But he allowed Harvey to bundle him back into his shirt and jacket, and then followed the older man, who was still saying things every once in awhile in a low, soothing tone—Mike could see his lips moving but couldn't really process the specific words—outside in the cold and into Harvey's waiting car.

Mike didn't question where they were going—he was with Harvey so it didn't really matter—but he recognized his classroom buildings at Harvard as they drove by. He was resting his forehead against the window because the cold glass felt good on his bruised, aching skin, and he jolted himself so hard when he remembered that he had to be in class and turning in a paper in a few hours that he smacked his cheek against the glass.

Wincing, he turned to Harvey and then blinked for a minute, dizzy from all the sudden movement. He needed to tell Harvey about his essay—maybe Harvey wouldn't mind staying up and typing it out if Mike dictated it from memory. Granted, his processing speed wasn't so great right now so the end result probably wouldn't make sense, but it would be better to be turn in 50 pages of nonsense than nothing.

"I don't want to be Louis' personal janitor," was what he said instead, his voice earnest and concerned. "I might get a lot of paper cuts."

Harvey turned from the road for a brief second to give Mike a confused look. "Okay," he said. "Don't be Louis' personal janitor then."

"But what if I fail out of Harvard?" Mike asked, chewing on his lower lip until he remembered that it had been bleeding earlier and that he shouldn't be biting it, or else it would probably hurt a lot in the morning when the meds wore off.

"Are you in any real danger of failing out of Harvard right now?" Harvey asked, cautiously attempting to follow Mike's train of thought as he turned down the street that Mike's apartment was on.

"No…but Dr. Miklos might murder me if I show up to lecture this morning without my essay. I think he can breathe fire—he might be a dragon, you know," Mike chattered conversationally. "He always wears these heavy sport coats—seems suspicious to me. If I had a little pair of dragon wings I'd probably wear that kind of sport coat."

"I fairly certain that your professor is not, in fact, a dragon," Harvey reassured Mike, sounding amused.

"You don't know that! One girl asked him why he wore those sport coats and he said it was because he was cold," Mike said.

"That seems like a perfectly logical answer to me," Harvey said dryly.

"No, that sounds like the kind of answer that someone who was trying to hide the fact that they were a dragon would give," Mike said in a _duh, it's completely obvious _tone of voice.

Harvey's lips were twitching with laughter, but he just changed the subject, apparently sensing that it was a matter of great emotional upheaval for Mike at the moment. "Well, where's your essay?" He asked as he parked the car and got out. He came around to Mike's side and opened Mike's door for him, since Mike had clumsily been fumbling with the door knob and failing to open it on his own. Mike hated how helpless he felt, but his brain and his body weren't really cooperating at the moment.

"On my computer," Mike said sadly, thinking of his lost laptop.

"Oh," Harvey said. "If it makes you feel any better, I really don't think you'll be feeling up to going to class tomorrow. Once the medicine wears off you'll start to feel those bruised ribs—"

"No! I have to go, Harvey!" Mike exclaimed earnestly, trying to remember why it was so important. Oh yeah. "Because I don't want to fail…I want to be a good lawyer, like you, Dad!"

"Can you say that again for me on a tape recorder, please?" Harvey said, and Mike could hear a hint of laughter in his voice at the compliment before he got serious again. "Really, Mike, I don't think you're going to make it into class tomorrow."

"He's going to burn me alive," Mike moaned as they stepped into the elevator, imagining the look on Dr. Miklos' face when Mike had to explain that he didn't have the ethics essay. He repressed a shudder as the dim florescent light in the elevator flickered ominously. Mike was on the top floor and the elevator usually only worked 29% of the time (he had done the math), but they were fortunate tonight and the elevator started moving without incident.

He was expecting some kind of response from his father, perhaps a bit of sympathy or commiseration, but was disappointed when he looked over to see Harvey tapping away furiously on his phone and apparently not paying him any mind.

"There," Harvey said when he finally looked up. "That's all taken care of."

"What's taken care of?" Mike asked, hobbling out of the elevator and down the hallway to his door. He fumbled around for his keys—fortunately he had had them tucked into the discreet pocket on the inside of his jacket during the mugging so they hadn't been taken—and allowed Harvey to pluck them from his hands and nimbly unlock the door in a manner of seconds. Mike's coordination was off, so that was fine by him. The sooner he got to lie down and go to sleep, the better.

"Luckily for you, I had Dr. Miklos' as a professor when I did law here," Harvey said. "And he owes me a favor, so I emailed him and explained the situation. I'm sure he'll understand you needing an extension on your paper this once, particularly if the request is coming from me." He could hear the smug satisfaction in Harvey's voice, and relaxed when he realized that he could stop worrying about being Louis' janitor. He'd have to fashion Harvey some sort of superhero cape as a thank-you for saving him from a life of servitude to Louis.

"Dad," he said as a question occurred to him. "Would you keep me if I had to be Louis' janitor?"

There was a brief pause. "I don't know where you got the idea that someone is going to force you to clean up after Louis, but yes, of course I would keep you if you didn't make it through Harvard. Lawyer or no lawyer, legal adult or teenager, you're stuck with me, kid," Harvey said gruffly.

Mike fought the stupid grin that was threatening to cross his face, hiding it by stumbling across his dingy, tiny little studio and over to his bed as he struggled to get his arms out of his jacket.

"Thanks, Dad," he mumbled as he flopped down on top of the covers, tossing his jacket…somewhere. "Are you going back to New York now?"

"No," Harvey said, picking Mike's jacket up off the floor and shaking out the wrinkles. "Did you ever hear of a hanger?"

Mike mumbled something into his pillow about where Harvey could stick a hanger, but smiled when he felt Harvey tugging his shoes off and tucking them under the bed for tomorrow. He then felt the blankets being drawn up to his shoulders, and burrowed gratefully in their warmth, tucking his cold nose underneath the comforter. He was too cheap to pay to keep the heat on for more than a couple of hours a day, especially when he wasn't actually there in the apartment, so it was always freezing when he came back at night. He heard Harvey sigh and move over in the general direction of where the thermostat was located on the wall, presumably turning it on for the night.

"I'll be on the couch if you need me, Mike," Harvey said, his voice sounding weary. The edge of the painkillers had worn off just enough that Mike was capable of remembering that Harvey had driven a solid 3 hours to get there and was probably equally as exhausted as Mike. "I want to hear about everything that happened, but I think it can wait til morning when you're well-rested."

And then he flicked off the light.

The second that the room was plunged into darkness Mike felt his breath catch in his throat as he was thrown back into what had happened earlier that night in the alleyway. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to steady his panicked breathing, willing himself to think about something other than the way that the knife had glinted in the moonlight and how helpless he'd felt and the way that the cold snow on the ground had numbed his knees as they'd forced him to kneel while they kicked him and stole his wallet and his phone and his laptop. The only thing he could hear were his harsh gasps and the blood rushing through his ears. He was drowning; being swallowed by the darkness—

And just like that, it was all over.

The light was back on again, and Mike felt a dip in the edge of the bed as Harvey sat down, his voice soothing and his hand warm as it cupped Mike's cheek.

"—you're okay, Mike," Harvey was murmuring gently, his solid presence giving Mike something to focus on as he gradually calmed his breathing.

"I'm sorry, buddy," Harvey said when Mike was calm, his hand moving up to smooth the hair off Mike's forehead. "We can leave the light on—I should have known you wouldn't want to be in the dark after what happened tonight. Do you want to talk about it?"

Mike just shook his head. He would talk about it tomorrow, in the light of the day when it was further away from right now. He just wanted to sleep now; to forget that any of this mess ever happened.

"Tomorrow," he said sleepily, noticing the bags under Harvey's eyes and the 5 o'clock shadow smudged on the lower half of his face. "You'll stay for the rest of the night?" He asked, hating how childishly uncertain he sounded but needing the validation. He tamped down a bit of the guilt he felt at pulling his dad away from New York in the middle of the night.

"Of course," Harvey said, standing and smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from the blanket. "I've got one hell of a safety lecture to give you tomorrow, and I need to be well-rested to ensure proper delivery. I'll be right on the couch if you need me."

"Thanks for coming," Mike mumbled sincerely, his eyes drifting shut. "I wish Harvard wasn't so far away from home," he said wistfully.

Harvey made a noise of assent. "Do you want me to leave the lamp on?"

Mike thought about it for a minute. "Nahh," he said. He wasn't really afraid anymore— if nightmares came, Harvey would be right there to chase them away.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Mike said. _I don't need the light on with you here to keep me safe, Dad. _

Whoops. He might have said that last bit out loud. That was embarrassing.

But Harvey just flipped the lamp off in response, ruffling Mike's hair affectionately one last time before padding over to the couch. Mike allowed a tired smile to cross his face, rolling over to find a comfortable position, wincing as his sore muscles pulled slightly. It had been a few hours, and he was starting to feel those bruises, just as the medic had warned. He sure was glad that he didn't have to get up in two hours for his lecture.

As he drifted off peacefully, he wondered what kind of favor Dr. Miklos owed Harvey, but decided that maybe it was best that he didn't know. Harvey had a habit of proving his legendary badass-ery in the most unexpected of moments, and it was one of Mike's favorite parts of being Harvey's son that he often got the opportunity to see Harvey in full-out best-closer-in-New-York mode, taking down names and pulling out hidden cards that nobody knew he was holding and just overall kicking ass.

He almost felt a little sorry for the guys who had jumped him—if Harvey got his hands on them, which he probably would somehow…well, Mike had great pity for them because he knew they'd walk away from the encounter regretting that they'd jumped him.

He grinned into his pillow. His dad was a bit of a crazy egomaniac/workaholic with really awful taste in modern art and a complete inability to cook anything edible, but Mike was pretty sure he'd keep him anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey everybody! Hope you're all having a good summer. Sorry I haven't been updating much, but I've been pretty busy with work and stuff. This chapter is kind of random, and it was weird for me to go back to insecure 14-year-old Mike after writing so much older Mike for the past few chapters, but hopefully I've done this justice. I'm hoping to be able to update a little more often from here on out, so stay tuned. Thanks for your patience!**

**This chapter is especially dedicated to phoenix on cloud nine, to whom I owe some fluff :D Love you El! Hope this helps ;P**

**Chapter 6: The First Father's Day**

**Mike's age: 14 ½ (aka he's been back to living with Harvey for a couple of months now)**

* * *

_But all is fleeting...yeah, but all is good_

_And my love is my whole being and I shared what I could_

_But if you give a little love you can get a little love of your own_

_Don't break his heart_

_-From "Give a Little Love" by Noah and the Whale_

* * *

The mug slipped out of Mike's hands and lay in splinters on the ground before he even had time to register what was happening. There was no aborted attempt to dive for it, no gasp of horror as the porcelain smashed into smithereens, no wince at the high-pitched shattering noise…all he knew was that one minute he was holding the wet, soapy mug, and the next minute it was laying on the kitchen floor, broken into millions of shards of navy blue.

Mike drew in a sharp breath as he dropped to his knees, his hands automatically reaching to scoop up the shards of glass and do something with them—he wasn't sure _what_, exactly, but he couldn't just stand there and do nothing. The mug was clearly completely beyond repair, but that didn't stop his anxious fingers from scrambling to pick up all the pieces.

He was dimly aware of someone calling his name, but he was too awash in panic to register the voice, much less to respond coherently. "Damnit," he murmured under his breath, and he knew he was far more frantic over the situation than he should have been.

_He needed to fix this somehow. _And he needed to do it fast, before Harvey came in and found out that Mike had just smashed his favorite mug on the kitchen floor. Harvey, who had received the now-broken 'World's Greatest Lawyer' mug from his father when he had graduated from Harvard and passed the bar. Harvey, who drank coffee out of said mug almost everyone morning at breakfast as he read over the newspaper or case files. Harvey, who…who was suddenly kneeling down in front of Mike, his face a mixture of confusion and concern.

"…Mike? You okay, kid?" Harvey was saying.

Mike could only nod, his throat oddly tight.

"Stop that! You're going to cut your fingers," Harvey said, his voice gentle but exasperated as he nimbly plucked the shards of glass that Mike was clutching out of his hands and stood to dump them in the nearby trashcan. "What's wrong with you? Do you _want _to have to get stitches or something?"

"Sorry, Harvey," Mike said helplessly, copying Harvey's motions and standing.

"Sit," Harvey said, lightly pushing Mike into one of the kitchen chairs. "You look pale. Did you cut yourself?"

Mike looked down at his hands, his stomach rolling slightly as he saw the blood coating the palm of his left hand. He nodded wordlessly, looking away from his hand to avoid the nausea that always overtook him at the sight of his own blood outside of its rightful place inside his body. Unfortunately, his gaze re-settled on the pile of blue porcelain and he felt the guilt and worry build anew in the pit of his stomach.

Harvey came over and took a gentle hold of Mike's left wrist to get a better look at the injured palm. "Stay here," he said, frowning critically. He padded off to the guest bathroom down the hall and returned a moment later with some antiseptic wipes and bandages. He pulled a chair up and took a seat directly across from Mike, close enough so that their knees brushed slightly.

"Give me your hand," Harvey said, his voice commanding but somehow low and reassuring at the same time. Mike placed his palm into Harvey's slightly larger, warmer hand, and watched as Harvey set to work, the older man's face diligent and focused. First he gently cleaned Mike's hand and then he dabbed some antibiotic cream on the jagged cut that crossed Mike's entire palm. It was painful, but shallow.

He looked up at Mike as he began wrapping a bandage around the wound. "So are you going to tell me what's going on here?"

Mike frowned and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, sensing an uncomfortable conversation about emotions hurtling his way at break-neck speed. "What do you mean? Nothing's going on. I just dropped the mug and cut my hand. No big deal."

"No big deal? Mike, I came to see what happened when I heard the crash and stood there for a solid minute calling your name," Harvey said. Mike flinched slightly at this, even though there was no anger in Harvey's voice. "And you didn't respond until I knelt down in front of you…were it anyone else, I'd say that yes, it was just a broken mug and cut on the hand. But there's more to this one than meets the eye for you, isn't there?"

"I'm sorry about the mug," Mike said quietly.

"It's fine, Mike. It was an accident," Harvey said kindly, squeezing Mike's left wrist gently before letting go of the now-bandaged hand.

_He was being too nice_. Mike was waiting for the other shoe to drop; for Harvey to realize that Mike hadn't just broken any old mug, but rather one that was irreplaceable in its sentimental value "Or at least I'm assuming it was an accident," Harvey mused. "Maybe we should sign you up for boxing lessons if you've taken to throwing mugs on the ground to release your emotions." He grinned slightly at Mike, clearly expecting that this would make Mike laugh.

But it just made Mike feel worse. "It was an accident," he said softly, unsure as to why his voice was trembling slightly. He had lost his own father too, and he knew how precious and important the little stuff that got left behind was sometimes. He himself still had random trinkets from his parents that blended in with his normal possessions but held a deceptively deep significance behind their innocent, run-of-the-mill façade. His dad's collection of skinny ties from the eighties hung proudly in his closet in the office-turned-bedroom, for example, and some of his mom's sketches that she had done in college hung in a position of great honor on the walls of his room. There were other little things—the baby blanket that his mom had sewed for him was tucked away safely in a box in his closet, and he took it out every once in awhile. If he closed his eyes, sometimes he could imagine that it still smelled like her, and as he tenderly ran his fingers over the strong, sure stitches she had made all those years ago, he could picture her sewing it while she was pregnant with him, biting her lip in the way that she always had when she concentrated.

Grammy had once told him that he bit his lip the exact same as her when when he was concentrating too.

He also had an impressive collection of action figures that he and his dad had collected together, and he still remembered well how upset he'd been when he'd brought one of them to school one day when he was twelve and some of kids had managed to steal it and break it before Trevor came and beat them up. The sting of his parents' death had still been fresh at the time, barely a few months old, and Mike had cried in the boys' bathroom after Trevor had handed him the broken pieces of plastic that he'd retrieved from the miscreants. Trevor had awkwardly patted him on the back, too young and too concerned with his masculinity to understand how to comfort a distraught peer; much less one going through something as traumatic and unrelatable as suddenly becoming an orphan.

It wasn't a happy memory.

And now Mike had essentially done the same thing to Harvey with the 'World's Greatest Lawyer' mug—he had destroyed one of the things that Harvey's dad had given him, and now it couldn't be put back together. Granted, it had been a complete accident, but still…Harvey had known and loved his father for his whole life, and he'd barely known Mike for upwards of 8 months. He wouldn't blame Harvey for being angry; really. It might actually have made him feel _better _if Harvey would just get mad and yell at Mike a little for it. He wasn't normally such a glutton for punishment, but Harvey's kindness just made him feel worse about the situation.

But at the same time, things had been going really well since he'd moved back in with Harvey after the trial a few months ago, and the last thing he wanted was to rock the boat over something so stupid as his infernal clumsiness. He felt incredibly frustrated with his inability to go more than a few weeks without some sort of catastrophe, and didn't understand how Harvey could be so calm right now.

Indeed, Harvey merely looked a little bewildered at how seriously Mike was taking the incident instead of upset or angry. "I know; we just established that it was an accident. What happened?"

"Nothing. I was washing the dishes, and I turned away to grab the rag to dry off the mug and it just slipped out of my hands and shattered everywhere," Mike confessed.

"Okay," Harvey said slowly. "I agree; that definitely sounds like nothing to me. What am I missing here, Mike?"

"Why aren't you more upset about this?" Mike asked, irritated now with Harvey's inability to understand the gravity of the situation.

"And why _are _you so upset about this?" Harvey countered, leaning back in his kitchen chair and folding his arms across his chest, his posture relaxed but his gaze scrutinizing Mike as though he were a particularly tricky clause of a patent.

"That was the mug that your dad gave you, Harvey! Your _favorite _mug!" Mike exclaimed, his voice suddenly rising in frustration. He knew it was probably rude to yell at the man when he'd just broken a gift from his deceased father, but Harvey was being a complete_ idiot_. "Don't you see? He's not just going to pop up and give you a new one to replace that one! It's gone and I broke it!"

Harvey was quiet for a moment, looking like he was turning over what Mike had just said in his mind and trying to analyze its significance. He shifted his gaze to Mike's face and he suddenly looked sad at what he saw there. Mike felt his stomach clench at Harvey's expression—it seemed that Harvey _finally _understood what Mike had done and was now responding appropriately. He wondered how long it would take for Harvey to get mad and braced himself slightly for the explosion.

"Mike," Harvey said quietly. "I already know which mug it is—I only own one dark blue mug like that."

"But…" Mike said, confused. "But…you're not upset!"

"Your sharp observations never fail to dazzle me," Harvey said dryly, rolling his eyes.

"But…" Mike spluttered, trying to find the words to explain why he was upset and why Harvey should be too.

"But nothing. Mike, it's just a mug. My dad probably didn't pay more than five bucks for it," Harvey said, glancing over at the pile of porcelain that had once proudly spelled out the words 'World's Greatest Lawyer.' "I don't need a mug to remind me that my father was proud of me. Nor do I need one to be reminded of the fact that I'm the world's greatest lawyer. Everyone already knows that."

Mike thought that if that statement wasn't so big-headed, it might have been a bit touching. "You sure you're not mad? Or that you're not going to get mad about it later?"

If it frustrated Harvey that Mike constantly need reinforcement of the fact that Harvey wasn't going to kick him out of the apartment over minor offenses, he did an admirable job of hiding it. "No, I'm not mad, and I won't be mad later," he promised, standing up to get the broom. He began sweeping up the pieces of porcelain.

"Here, let me help—" Mike said, urgently surging to his feet. He swayed slightly and Harvey held up a hand for him to stop.

"Freeze," he said firmly. "Sit back down—you still look a little pale from that cut, and the only thing that will make me mad is if you swoon like a girl and I have to catch you."

"I have never '_swooned like a girl',_" Mike huffed defensively, collapsing back into his seat and glaring as Harvey dumped the remains of his mug into the garbage. "Harvey…I've had stuff that belonged to my parents get ruined or destroyed too a couple of times over the past few years, and it sucks," Mike explained seriously. "You can be mad at me for it, you know. I'll understand."

"Mike," Harvey said, opening one of the cabinets. "Look. There are at least ten other mugs in here. I think I'll be okay. I appreciate you taking the sentimental value of the mug into account, but I have plenty of other things from my father—pictures, my watch, some books—it's okay, kid. You dropped a mug, not a newborn baby. Don't be so hard on yourself, okay? The important thing is that you didn't cut yourself badly. That's all that matters. And that you were somehow doing the dishes without being asked, which, frankly is a miracle as far as I'm concerned. Okay?"

Mike nodded, feeling much better but still a little insecure. He supposed Harvey really meant it about it not being a big deal—his guardian could be a bit of a drama queen when he was truly upset, and Mike wasn't getting that vibe right now. Harvey genuinely didn't seem to care that Mike had broken the mug, and he supposed that it _was _a little ridiculous that he'd been so upset about it and so insistent that Harvey got angry about it.

It would be okay—they'd come a long way already, after all. Had this been a few months prior, Mike would have been a nervous wreck about Harvey punishing him harshly for a minor offense like this. As it was, he had been mad that Harvey _hadn't _punished him, which he supposed was a good sign in a weird sort of way. But still, they had a ways to go—Mike wondered if he'd ever stop feeling afraid that Harvey would kick him to the curb over some final little last straw, like a shattered mug on the kitchen floor.

Maybe Harvey sensed this lingering uncertainty, because he motioned Mike over by where he stood at the sink. "Get over here, kid," he said, his voice a little gruff, as it sometimes was before he did something that he considered outside of his "I'm-a-badass-lawyer" character.

"Er—okay...did you miss a spot?" Mike asked he stepped over by the sink, feeling steadier on his feet now that he'd sat for awhile. He scanned the floor for remaining bits of glass and wondered if Harvey had called him over to pick up a piece that he'd missed when he was sweeping or something.

"No," Harvey said, and to Mike's great surprise, he opened his arms as if to invite Mike into an embrace.

"Um," Mike said articulately.

"Well, are you going to bring it in or not? I don't know that it'll help, but you look like you need it," Harvey sighed, holding his arms out welcomingly. It was an odd and confusing juxtaposition; the exasperation mixed with blatantly open affection. But, Mike supposed, that was Harvey for you.

"You really are going soft," Mike remarked in amusement, a genuine grin breaking out on his face as Harvey scowled down at him. "I break your mug, and you wind up hugging me for it."

But to his surprise, Harvey made no sarcastic retort when Mike tentatively stepped forward and into the open embrace. He was probably way too old to be accepting comfort like this, but Harvey was right. He'd had a tough day, and it_ did_ make him feel better. Plus, he'd missed out on three years of affection since his parents had died—he figured he was entitled to a hug every now and then, right?

"You know I'm proud of you, right?" Harvey asked quietly as they broke apart a few seconds later. "Like I just said before, I have absolutely no doubt that my dad was proud of me. I just want to make sure that you know the same thing is true for you and me."

"Yeah," Mike beamed. "Thanks, Harvey," he said softly. And if there was a strange warmth spreading through his body, well, it probably had nothing to do with the way that Harvey ruffled his hair on his way back to the family room where he had been working before the resounding tinkle of broken glass had echoed through the apartment, or the way that Harvey consistently stepped out of his own comfort zone to reassure and comfort Mike. It was probably just from increased circulation and his body trying to make up from the blood loss he'd sustained when he'd cut his hand.

Probably.

* * *

Mike returned the favor a few weeks later by taking a hugestep out of his _own_ comfort zone.

He'd been riding his bike to the library after school, thinking vaguely about all the had transpired the night that he'd dropped the mug, when it caught his eye in the store window.

And after all that had recently happened, he couldn't _not _go into the store and buy it. It was the perfect gift—now if only he could get over his fear of the occasion and of actually _giving _Harvey the gift and watching him open it, then it would _really_ be perfect.

Because much to Mike's dismay, one of the worst, most awkward days of the year was drawing near: Father's Day. For the fatherless, it could be a sad, grim holiday; a reminder of what was missing. And for the well-I-kind-of-have-a-father-figure-but-I-don't-kn ow-how-he-feels-about-it-really camp, which Mike fit into flawlessly these days, it was a day of an anxiety-inducing mix of emotions and tumultuous self-doubts…was Harvey expecting a Father's Day card and gift? Would he be weirded out if Mike gave him something for the occasion? What if the gift he had bought was overstepping the unspoken boundaries of their relationship?

But, Mike told himself firmly that morning as he rummaged around the kitchen, he _owed _it to Harvey to be brave and take this risk. After all, Harvey had put himself in plenty of uncomfortable positions to reassure Mike before, and it was the least that Mike could do to return the favor. Because although Harvey never showed it, Mike figured he must doubt his ability to be a parent somewhat. In fact he _knew _it—why else was Harvey secretly reading parenting books? Why did he feel the need to make sure that Mike knew he was proud of him? Why did he sometimes have hushed, worried conversations about how he doubted his ability to help Mike recover from his time in foster care with the Jensens with Donna when he thought Mike was out of sight and earshot?

So he could do this, if only for Harvey's sake. Or so he told himself as he laid everything out on a breakfast tray and attempted to arrange all of it into some semblance of an aesthetically pleasing meal. He had just finished arranging the toast and eggs in what he hoped was an artful way when he heard Harvey padding down the hallway.

He froze and forced an expression of calm onto his features as Harvey entered the kitchen.

"I'm going to go shower," he said quickly, and he high-tailed it out of the kitchen and into the bathroom before Harvey could notice the tray.

As he turned the water on and hopped in the shower, he tried not to think about Harvey standing in the kitchen and seeing the breakfast that Mike had made, but his mind couldn't help but project what was probably happening out there.

First Harvey would see the tray sitting neatly on the kitchen table. He'd be confused; Mike was pretty sure that his guardian wasn't aware of what day it was. Harvey had just finished a huge case and he tended to get really zoned out of the real world when he got absorbed in the final days of a trial.

Then he'd notice the simple card that was standing next to the orange juice, and he'd open it and see the brief message Mike had written inside. The message itself wasn't that bad. It was the front of the card that was really incriminating, because it said "Happy Father's Day!" in cheerful blue bubble letters, its message terrifyingly overt and inescapable.

Inside Mike had jotted the following:

_Harvey—_

_ Thanks for everything you do for me. Whether you know it or not, you deserve this card more than many of the parents that I've met who have biological children, because you __**chose **__to take care of me. Sorry I broke your mug the other day, but like you said, you already have plenty of delusions of grandeur about being a great lawyer to sustain you when it comes to feeling confident in your career path. But I hope that you never doubt that you're doing a good job as a father. If you ever need a reminder, I hope this mug helps._

_-Mike_

And then the real test: Harvey's eyes would undoubtedly drift to the new white coffee mug that was sitting in the corner of the tray.

The terrifying coffee mug that had been haunting Mike's brain for the past few days as he'd debated whether or not he was really strong enough and brave enough to give it to Harvey.

The coffee mug that had the words 'World's Greatest Dad' proudly emblazoned on it in bold black letters.

By the time that Mike had dried off and dressed, his stomach was tied up in knots. He wondered how Harvey would react. Would he be angry? Confused? Would he think Mike was a sappy idiot? Would he ever actually use the mug?

Mike stepped into the kitchen, his legs feeling slightly shaky as he looked at his guardian with a confusing mixture of hope and extreme trepidation.

"Good morning, Mike. Think it's my turn to shower now," Harvey said casually, standing up from the table, clapping Mike on the shoulder, and disappearing to his bedroom where the master bathroom was.

Mike looked around the kitchen, his heartbeat a little quicker than normal. The mug was nowhere in sight, and he opened the cabinet door with shaking fingers. To his indescribable relief and happiness, the mug, freshly washed and dried, was sitting in the place of honor where the 'World's Greatest Lawyer' mug had sat for ages before it had been broken. The new mug had a post-it with Harvey's handwriting stuck on it.

Feeling slightly giddy, Mike gently pulled the note off and read it.

_Thanks for the mug upgrade and the reminder. But if Donna cries when I bring it into the office Monday morning, I hope you know that __**you're **__responsible for dealing with her rampant female emotions. _

Mike let out a shaky laugh and tucked the post-it into his pocket. He'd put it into the box in his closet that contained the broken action figure and the baby blanket his mom had made when he was born. He got now that the mug was just a mug and it didn't really matter if it broke, but sometimes it _was _nice to keep a little reminder of the ones you loved close.

And that was the story of how Harvey got a new coffee mug, Mike acquired a newfound confidence in his relationship with his guardian, and the almighty Donna was brought to happy tears over a mere porcelain cup.

* * *

**So...yeah. Hope you all enjoyed it; let me know what you think :D  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**This chapter was...unexpected. I sat down a few hours ago with a vague idea of what I wanted to write and just now looked up from my laptop more than 6,000 words later, which is by far the most I've ever written in one sitting. I guess this one just wanted to come out! Hope you'll all enjoy it :D  
**

**This is dedicated to my dear friend Phoenix on cloud nine, to whom I owe some fluff to tomorrow and who requested some Mike-looking-through-old-stuff-in-the-closet-and-b eing-sad. Hope this helps with everything, dear. Also I think I've now officially dedicated the past three chapters to you, and I don't know what that says about our friendship exactly hahaha**

**This one is also dedicated to anyone who's starting school now- namely, college, and especially college for the first time :D good luck, everybody! Also I'm leaving to go back to school tomorrow, so...just don't get your hopes up about any sudden updates, because it might be awhile, sorry :P**

**Also, one more thing- I don't know anything about Harvard or Harvard housing, so just play along with this. I'm just using it to give Harvey grief XD**

**Mike's age: 18**

* * *

_And if someone must take my place_

_For I'll be gone the longest time_

_I'll wait and I will understand_

_A heart of thorns must leave the mind_

_-From "This Is Not the End" by Clare Maguire_

* * *

Mike wasn't ready to go yet.

But he somehow found himself packing up the last of his clothes into one of the cardboard moving boxes that Harvey had placed in his room last week, smiling grimly at Mike as he'd stacked them one by one next to Mike's desk. He couldn't believe how weird the office-turned-bedroom looked at the moment—he'd moved some of the full boxes into the hallway to have more room in his room to pack what was left, and now all that remained was the bed, looking cold and impersonal without the brightly colored afghan that Grammy had knitted him, and his empty desk and dresser.

The afghan was tucked into a bag somewhere amongst the boxes of his clothes, books and other personal items, and now all that was left to go through and pack were a few boxes filled with knickknacks in his closet. He figured he'd probably leave most of what was in them behind—he didn't think he'd need his winter boots til he came home for Thanksgiving, and he didn't even know why he was hanging on to some of the other random stuff in there—old school notes and tests, some trophies from his much-hated time playing Little League as a kid, and a couple of notebooks filled with his childish sketches and some of the stories he'd made up when he was younger—that could all stay here while he was gone.

But there was one box in particular that he still needed to look through before he left. He heaved a sigh and wiped his brow as he closed the last box of his clothes and slid it out into the hallway. The August air was unbearably hot and muggy—Mike had the window open to get a breeze rolling in, but the air current was so hot that he thought any wind was probably just making his room even _hotter. _

Stepping into the cool darkness of his now-empty closet was sweet relief—he dropped to sit down by the box he wanted and instantly felt it drop ten degrees.

He took a deep breath as he sat for a moment to cool off before he began what was sure to be a painful task. This was the first quiet moment he'd had to himself for the past few days, and he wasn't quite sure that he _wanted _to take the time to think about everything that was happening, but at the same time he knew he needed to process some of what was going on so that he could mentally prepare himself for the move he was about to make in two days.

He was finally going to Harvard.

He'd leisurely finished up with all of his undergrad work back in May, and Harvard had been practically salivating when they'd gotten his transcript and records—Mike was pretty sure he could have skipped writing all the entrance essays and not taken the LSAT, and Harvard _still _would have wanted him for law school. It was incredible; a complete dream come true, and it was what he'd wanted his whole life.

It was just…now that he was eighteen and the moment had actually arrived for him to pack up and leave New York…well, he wasn't sure if he was ready to go. He was incredibly excited at the adventure that awaited him and at the chance to study at the top law school in the nation—for the first time in his life, he might actually have classes that tested his mind and challenged his brain, and he couldn't wait for that aspect of what was to come.

It helped too that Rachel and Harold would both be starting at Harvard this fall too—granted, they were doing their undergrad work while he was already starting grad school, but at least they'd be on the same campus and he'd have some friends his own age. That was all he really needed—he hoped to make friends with his classmates at law school, of course, but he had no illusions that it was going to be one big happy family. Harvey had told him all about how competitive and cutthroat law school could be, and he imagined that _Harvard_ law school would be particularly brutal. He knew that it would be especially rough for him since he was only 18 and all his classmates would be at least 22 or 23. But he felt much better knowing that Rachel and Harold would only be a 5-minute walk away from him in the freshman dorms.

He had wanted to live with them in the undergraduate dorms, but the law school had said that all their graduate students had to live off campus. So he and Harvey had driven down to Harvard a few weekends ago and found Mike a little one-person studio apartment relatively close to the law campus' library.

It had been a tense day of decision-making for the two of them—Harvey wasn't comfortable with the idea of Mike living alone in the first place, and the building Mike had chosen in the end was…less than savory, in his opinion. He'd wanted Mike to move into the Uppity Trust-Fund Baby Student Apartment Complex a few miles away (it wasn't actually called that—really it was something like the Pleasant Hills Student Housing: Where Every Student Finds a Home, but Mike had stubbornly dubbed it the UTFBSAC after he and Harvey had toured an apartment there), and Mike had refused within five minutes of stepping foot on the premises. It was too…uppity, and Mike didn't want to live in a place that was nicer than most 4 star hotels—he shuddered to imagine the kind of students who lived in a place like that. Sure, maybe some of them would be nice, but that wasn't his crowd or living style.

He much preferred the simple, utilitarian apartment complex that they'd gone to after Pleasant Hills, and it was the one he'd decided on in the end. In an ironic reversal of the Pleasant Hills situation, it was Harvey who had refused to let Mike live there within 2 minutes of stepping foot on the grounds of the apartment complex this time (probably because the cheesy sign that was trying too hard to be cool said 'Student Apartmentz'—Harvey _hated _when things were spelled with unnecessary 'z's'). They'd gone to get lunch after touring the 'Apartmentz', and Harvey had spent the whole time attempting to be subtle but completely failing as he'd aggressively talked up the Pleasant Hill complex, remarking on the beautiful view and location, and fake-coughing a lot and suggesting that maybe the Apartmentz had mold that would make Mike sick.

But Mike had snuck away from the diner they ate at to sign the lease at the Apartmentz while Harvey chatted with a former law school classmate that he'd run into who was now a professor at Harvard, and it had been too late by the time Harvey was done talking. Mike had returned shortly thereafter, jubilantly clutching the signed housing contract for his new apartment unit.

They'd shouted about it for a few minutes, until Harvey had reluctantly caved when Mike had turned on the puppy dog eyes and pointed out that _he _was the one living there and not Harvey. He'd proudly showed Harvey around the studio apartment they'd shown him after he'd signed (there wasn't much to see, besides the tiny closet and tinier bathroom), and then he'd dragged Harvey over to the landlord, Hank, who was a 50-year-old man who looked like he hadn't showered for about a week and told them that he was jealous of Mike's newfound independence because he himself still lived in his parents' basement. Despite his dubious nature, he was blithely cheerful, and seemed completely impervious to the disapproving looks that Harvey was shooting him the whole time they'd interacted, so Mike decided he liked the guy.

Harvey had grumbled while signing the co-pay agreement, but he'd gotten a look at the housing contract and was slightly mollified by the fact that "if he didn't like the look of it in a few months when Mike was actually living there, he'd be able to use his legal skills to crack it wide open and get Mike out of the contract and tucked away safely at Pleasant Hills faster than you could say 'dying of a gas leak'." There had been much eye-rolling by Mike then, but he'd been grateful that Harvey had ultimately respected his decision and let him live where he felt most comfortable. He'd had to drag Harvey away from Hank, though, because Harvey had started ranting about how he was going to call a friend of his and get the apartment building condemned if even one thing went awry with Mike's living situation.

Mike was grateful that Harvey was concerned for his safety, and he knew that he was lucky to have a guardian who would be able to afford for him to live in Pleasant Hills. But the thing was, Mike had never really felt comfortable in the extravagant lifestyle that Harvey was seemingly born to lead—Harvey had tried to buy him a brand new car last year, for example, and Mike had firmly rejected it. He was fine riding his bike, and if he _did_ get a car, he'd didn't want it to be all new and shiny. While everything about Harvey was classy and bigger-than-life, Mike still preferred things that were old and broken in and had character. Like his new apartment, for one—so what if the kitchenette faucet only worked half the time? And who needed air conditioning anyway, right? And why would somebody ever need more than a square foot of closet space?

Harvey had looked absolutely incredulous every time he'd looked over to see Mike smiling fondly at his suspiciously dirty and stained apartment walls. He didn't want to offend his father by blatantly rejecting Harvey's apartment of choice, but the vibe at Pleasant Hills just wasn't _him. _And not to mention, it was _way _out of his price range—he knew that Harvey would happily pay his entire rent fee out of his own pocket, but Mike wanted to be as independent as possible. He knew he'd barely be able to make ends meet to afford the rent at the 'Student Apartmentz', but he'd been saving up for years and was determined to try to do it himself. It helped that he was on a full academic scholarship, but there was still food and books and clothes to buy.

He also knew that Harvey tried to understand this mindset but had a hard time with it—to him, it didn't make sense that Mike didn't want his financial help. Harvey certainly had plenty of money, and it would barely make a dent at all to pay for Mike's basic living expenses. But Mike had grown up poor as a kid, and to him it felt unnatural to accept someone's help like that, even coming from his adoptive father. He just needed to try to do this on his own, and then if he really needed help he'd gratefully let Harvey jump in and save the day. He'd tried to explain this many times on apartment-hunting day—a 'thank you for the offer to buy me every single thing that your money could possibly buy, but no thank you if it's all the same to you' type of deal—but it hadn't seemed to sink in until the next day, when Donna and Harvey had had a long talk that Donna hadn't allowed Mike to listen to. Fortunately Donna seemed to have understood and gotten through to him, because Harvey hadn't said anything _too _disparaging about Mike's new apartment since then, though he'd looked sorely tempted several times.

Donna had been even more amazing than ever throughout this whole moving-to-college process. It was she who'd taken him shopping last week for stuff for his apartment, and it had been both efficient and surprisingly fun taking on IKEA and the mall with her. She'd helped him pick out curtains and towels and kitchenware and some basic furniture, and she'd successfully distracted the sales associate at the mattress store so that Mike could jump from mattress to mattress like a little kid without being seen or kicked out of the store, effectively allowing him to fulfill a longtime life goal of his.

She'd also helped him pick out some new clothes, proudly remarking that he 'was just as tall as his father now!' It had been kind of what he thought going shopping for college with his mother would have been like if she'd still been alive. When he'd shyly said as much, blushing and looking away, she'd gone a bit teary and pulled him into a fierce embrace in the middle of the busy check-out line at the department store.

"I'm going to miss you," she'd murmured quietly in his ear. "But you'll do us all proud at Harvard."

They'd broken apart then, and Mike had taken a second to hastily swipe at his eyes while Donna was turned around boldly shutting down all the people who had yelled at them to stop holding up the line. She then paid for Mike's clothes, and it had looked suspiciously like she used her own credit card instead of the card of Harvey's that they'd been using all day.

When Mike had said as much as they were leaving the store, Donna just smiled mysteriously and said that when girls at college complimented him on his style, she wanted them all to know that _she _was the one who'd picked out his clothes and bought them, and not Harvey Specter.

Mike had tried to protest, but Donna was having none of it. Finally he'd given up as they climbed into her car, and switched to thanking her profusely for giving up her day off to take him shopping.

"Oh, honey," she'd said, fastening her seatbelt and then reached over to pat him on the arm. "It was my pleasure. But you should know that this isn't usually my day off. Harvey gave me the time off to take you shopping because he couldn't bring himself to do it himself. He claimed it's because he hates shopping, but I think it's really because the idea of it makes him too sad. It makes it too real that you're actually leaving, you know? I'm sure he's going to be an absolute nightmare for _weeks _after you leave."

It had been a rather silent drive home after Donna had dropped _that _bombshell. To be honest, Mike hadn't really given much thought to Harvey's feelings on the matter up to that point. He supposed it was kind of selfish, but he'd just been busy trying to get an apartment and registering for classes and buying all his supplies and now he needed to pack it all and he'd been so busy worrying about his own feelings about the transition into law school that…well, it had just slipped his mind. He'd been so focused on how hard this was going to be for _him—_leaving his home behind, moving to a brand new place and starting over…that he hadn't really given much thought to the idea that Harvey was probably sad too.

It made sense—he hadn't been looking for the signs, but they were all there. Harvey had been working late a lot the past few weeks, as he generally did when something was bothering him. He was suddenly more prone to patting Mike on the head or slinging an arm around his shoulders, as though Mike might just disintegrate into thin air if he didn't physically make sure he was still there every once in awhile. And he got a weird, pinched look on his face sometimes when he looked at all the moving boxes scattered around the apartment nowadays. At first Mike had just thought that Harvey was irritated by the tripping hazard they presented (Harvey could claim to be supremely graceful and agile all he wanted, but Mike had seen him trip on Mike's shoes that he always accidentally left on the floor on an almost daily basis for the past four years and he had the video to prove it), but now he got that Harvey was just…sad.

It was a weird thought, and it made him feel a strange mix of things— sadness that he was making Harvey sad, but also warmth that Harvey obviously cared so much about Mike's presence in their home. But, as Donna had said in the car, talking about it made it too real, and he felt a little choked up every time he almost said something to Harvey about it, so he'd just pushed it to the back of his mind and focused all his attention on packing and getting his life in order.

But now…sitting in his quiet, dark closet all alone, it seemed inescapable. He was leaving in two days. In two nights he'd be sleeping in a different bed, surrounded by different walls, hundreds of miles away from his home and his family. It was hard to imagine, but he tried. He tried to imagine what it'd be like to not be able to come home at any point in time he felt like it, to not be able to have face-to-face conversations with Harvey when he needed advice, or get a hug from Donna after a hard day of class.

It was one of those things where he didn't think it'd really sink in until something like that happened; when he'd had a rough day and just wanted to go home to the apartment and mindlessly watch TV and banter with Harvey on the couch and he couldn't do it because he was at Harvard 3 hours away.

For the past four years, he'd considered this bedroom _his _bedroom, this apartment his home. And now things were going to change. Sure, the apartment would always be his home…but he would be spending a majority of the year in that studio apartment at the Apartmentz complex conceivably for the next three years of law school (the dean was pretty sure he'd be able to graduate early, but Mike didn't want to count on it and jinx himself).

And he didn't know if he was ready for that.

Everything here was safe and familiar and _easy. _It hadn't always been that way, of course—he'd worked hard to get to where he was today. And now he had to give all of that up after just four years. It seemed a little unfair—Rachel and Harold were chomping at the bit to move out and start living away from their parents and be independent. The idea excited Mike too, but he'd had fourteen years less with Harvey than Rachel and Harold had had with their parents. Of course, he'd had eleven great years with his own parents. But a small, selfish part of him was jealous and angry that he'd missed out on so much, and another small part of him just wanted to stay here where everything was safe and easy and make up for that lost time.

But he knew that the outside world would keep right on moving even if he hid in this closet for the next three years, and that if he wanted to fulfill his dreams he'd have to get up and move right along with it. It would be hard, but he'd done harder things in his life. He was a former orphan—he could be very strong when he needed to be.

But for now…he reached out with slightly trembling fingers and slowly ripped the tape off of the last box that he needed to look through. The most important box.

Once it was open, he took a deep breath and reached inside to begin pulling things out. The only light in the closet was the dim light filtering in from his bedroom window, and the sun was setting so it wasn't very bright out. Still, he didn't need light to know what items his fingers were brushing against in the box—each and every single item was imprinted somewhere on his heart, and he knew them all by feel at this point in his life.

First there were papers—his birth certificate, his parents' death certificates, their last will and testament, and some of the random birthday cards or notes to him that they'd written that he'd guarded fiercely since their deaths, afraid of forgetting what his mom's signature had looked like or how his dad had always had a hard time deciding how to write the number 2 and had switched between two different methods. The next layer of papers was more recent—report cards from high school, his acceptance letter to the NYU undergrad program, and the acceptance letter to Harvard that he'd tucked in here a few months back in May.

Then he removed a folder filled with more papers, a small grin tugging at his mouth—these were his adoption papers, and they were well-worn from being taken out and looked at and then put back. There had been a period of few months after his adoption when he'd been plagued by random nightmares of his time at the Jensens and Harvey wanting to give him back to Child Services, and many a night when he didn't want to disturb Harvey's sleep he'd comforted himself by sitting in the closet and pulling them out to reassure himself that yes; Harvey wanted him, there was his signature. It had always instantly made him feel better—seeing Harvey's strong, certain handwriting on the papers always made him feel a bit silly for having doubted it in the first place.

He hadn't felt a need to look at them to reassure himself in over two years now.

They could stay here; he didn't need them anymore. He put the adoption folder aside to be put back in the box again later, along with the legal papers regarding his parents. He'd probably take a card or a note from each one of them to school to go along with the framed picture of them that he always kept on his bedside table at the apartment and would put on the bedside table at the Apartmentz his first night there.

The next things in the box were harder to bear—his parents' weddings rings, his dad's well-loved Mets cap, and his mom's sketchbook. A slight lump grew in his throat as it always did when he thought about his parents for too long. Fortunately as the years went by, he was beginning to find a deep sense of peace when dwelling on their memories instead of the anguishing sadness that had once threatened to swallow him whole, but he still ached for all that he'd missed with them over the past seven years.

They would never know how tall he'd grown to be, or see how his formerly bright blond hair had faded into a sandier color with the years. They would never know that he'd gotten into Harvard Law four years early; would never get to meet the people who had become his family after their deaths. They wouldn't be there to kiss him goodbye and wish him good luck on his first year away from home, and would never send him care packages or forward him dumb chain emails to cheer him up while he was away.

And he had Harvey to do all that now, but it didn't stop a few tears from overflowing as he carefully drew out the last three items in the box, the three most precious things he owned—a crumpled up post-it with Harvey's handwriting from Father's Day four years ago, a broken action figure of his dad's, and the baby blanket that his mom had made him.

And suddenly he was full-out crying as he buried his face in the baby blanket, desperately trying to remember how his mom had smelled and not quite coming up with the right scent. It was terrifying; knowing that the memory of his parents was slowly slipping away from him. His memory had always been extraordinary, and it was true that he could remember word-for-word everything he'd ever seen them write and many things they'd said to him, but even _his _memory couldn't replicate a smell that he hadn't smelled for seven years, or exactly recall the pitch and timbre of his father's laughter. It wasn't that it was gone completely, it was just…blurred now, lacking its once razor-sharp clarity. Had Mom had freckles on her nose? What angle had Dad thrown his head back at when he did that full-bellied laugh he sometimes did?

And that was part of the reason why he didn't feel ready to go to Harvard. He didn't want to leave Harvey behind. He'd lost a lot already, and he just wanted to stay by Harvey where it was secure and safe and he didn't have to get up every morning and face the world alone.

He was suddenly very grateful that Harvey had gone to the grocery store, because he was making embarrassing choking noises into the baby blanket as the full impact of how his life was going to change in two days hit him.

He was going to have to be an adult. He could do it; he _knew _he could. It was just…change was hard. And he'd really miss Harvey, damnit. So he allowed himself a few minutes to freak out in the privacy and relative darkness of his closet, clutching artifacts from the three most important people in his life—the two who'd given him life and nurtured him in his early years, and the man who'd taken him in when he was lost and turned him into the person he was today. Maybe he'd feel better if he just cried it out. And it wasn't like there was anyone around to hear him—Donna was coming with to help him move in, so he didn't have to worry about her stopping by to say goodbye, and he was going to see Grammy and Henry Morris tomorrow afternoon.

But apparently Harvey wasn't as gone at the grocery store as Mike had thought he was, because he heard footsteps coming down the hallway and his bedroom door swinging open.

"Mike, I got us a pizza—the kind with the cheese in the cru—Mike?"

Harvey's tone took on a puzzled, questioning inflection as he entered the room and realized that Mike was nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, Mike was panicking slightly in the closet, wondering if he should just keep hiding and risk being found out, or come out and try to think of a reasonable explanation for why he was huddled in his closet crying.

He was saved from making the decision when Harvey swung the closet door all the way open, frowning quizzically at Mike. "What are you—oh." He said as he noticed the tear tracks on Mike's cheeks.

"Uh," Mike said, quickly drying his eyes on his sleeve. "Hi, Harvey," he said, attempting to sound casual despite his voice sounding weird and choked. "I was just, um," he tried to continue, but his gaze fell on the items scattered around his lap and he felt tears press at his eyelids again. He stood up to give himself something to do. Hating how shaky and teary his voice was, he nonetheless gathered up his courage to speak. "I don't know if I'm ready for this, Dad," he confessed in a whisper, two traitorous tears spilling over again.

Harvey wordlessly opened his arms, and Mike surged forward into the proffered embrace, burying his face in Harvey's shoulder.

"I don't know if I'm ready for it either, kid," Harvey said, and they stood in Mike's empty room, surrounded by full boxes and both suffering from what Harvey would later claim was 'just some dust from the closet getting in our eyes.' "But we'll take it a day at a time, and before you know it, it'll be fall break and you'll be home again. Law school flies by, and you'll be so busy you won't even have time to miss home. You'll have a great time, Mike. Trust me—law school was _made _for people like you."

"I'll still miss you though," Mike said, ignoring Harvey's Disapproving Eyebrow Quirk at the way that he wiped his teary eyes and snotty nose on his sleeve.

"I'll miss you too. It'll be awfully quiet around here. But now that you've got one of those expensive, newfangled iPhones we can TimeFace or whatever it is—"

"It's called _FaceTime, _Dad," Mike said in exasperation, rolling his eyes.

"Same thing," Harvey said. "Come on, how about some pizza? There's no use being sad now, we might as well make the best of your last two days home."

"Okay," Mike said, feeling oddly buoyed.

"But I'm just warning you," Harvey said, his tone serious, "if I ever hear you pronounce the word 'apartments' with a 'z' sound instead of an 's', you aren't allowed back in_ this_ apartment for Thanksgiving."

"Dad, nobody even talks like that," Mike groaned. "That's just Hank trying to be young and hip and failing. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Harvey didn't look convinced but let it go. "So I know we're going to see your grandparents tomorrow afternoon," he said as they headed to the kitchen to eat. "But is there anyone else you need to say goodbye to before you and Donna and I leave the next morning?"

Mike thought about it for a quick second—he'd see Rachel and Harold _at _Harvard, so he didn't need to worry about talking to them. Trevor had been in town for a few weeks this summer, but he was already long gone at school himself. He was playing football at a D2 school in the Midwest, and had been there since early August for practices and training.

He was about to say that he didn't need to say goodbye to anyone else, when he suddenly thought back to the things in that box in his closet.

"Yes, actually," he said as reached for his first slice of pizza. "Yes, there's still two people I need to say goodbye to before I leave."

* * *

The grass of the cemetery was an unappealing yellowish color from the drought they'd been having that summer, and it made weird swishing noises as their small party waded through it.

"They should be right over here," Grammy said, leading the way down a row that was shaded by a large oak tree. Mike liked the tree—it seemed almost like it was watching over the people that rested peacefully below it; guarding them from the worst of the elements and protecting the words written about them on the gravestones from fading. "Aha! Yes—James and Nina are right here."

Mike automatically stepped forward upon hearing his parents' names, while Harvey and Henry Morris respectfully stepped backwards to give the two of them some privacy.

Mike went to stand next to his grandmother, feeling chills run down his spine in spite of the August heat as he looked at the two headstones that bore his parents's names and the dates of their lives. He had never come here before—it was slightly outside the city in a peaceful little grove next to the church where his parents had been married, and he'd never had any reason to come out this way until now.

But it didn't feel right to leave New York City without visiting them and getting a little bit of closure.

He and Grammy stood in companionable silence for a minute, listening to the bluebirds chirping in the bushes nearby. He liked this place—his dad would have enjoyed lying in the tall grasses and looking at the clouds, and his mom would have loved sketching the wildflowers growing all around them. He was glad that they were buried here.

"They would have been very proud of you," Grammy said after awhile.

"That's what everyone's been telling me," Mike commented. He paused, not sure if he wanted to ask the question that was on his mind. "Grammy—do you…do you think they would have minded? About Harvey, I mean. That he adopted me and that I call him 'Dad' and stuff."

"Oh, Michael, honey," Grammy said. "Of course they wouldn't have minded. I'm sure they would be thrilled to see that you've found someone to fill in the hole they left behind. I know it's hard because they died so suddenly and you didn't have a chance to talk to them or say goodbye, but I assure you, they would never begrudge you seeking out a new parental figure."

Mike nodded and looked silently back at the curling script that spelled out his mom's middle name.

"You know," Grammy said conversationally. "I don't know if you would remember this, but your dad had a health scare when you were about five. He went in for a regular check-up, and there was something off about his white blood cell counts when they did a blood test. Well, the doctor told your father that it was possible that he had leukemia, and recommended that he get all these other tests done.

"James was terrified—he had a young family and his wife only worked part time. If something were to happen to him, how would they carry on? He came over in the morning before he went to get the rest of the tests done, and made me promise that I'd look after you to the best of my abilities if something ever happened to him or Nina. It was put in writing in their will, of course, but he wanted to be sure. And then he said that if for some reason I couldn't do it, he wanted me to make sure you wound up with a good family who would love just as much as they did."

Mike glanced over at Harvey out of the corner of his eye—his adoptive father was chatting with Henry Morris, but he glanced up when he felt Mike's eyes on him and flashed a reassuring smile in Mike's direction.

"Of course, as you know, the tests all came back negative and your father was fine. But I'll never forget the promise that I made to him, and I've done my best to fulfill it. You're lucky to have Harvey, but I think he's lucky to have you too, sweetie," Grammy said, turning to him. "Now come here and give your grandmother a hug, and I'll leave you to have a minute alone with your parents."

So Mike accepted the embrace and yet another comment of 'I can't believe how tall you've gotten!' and watched his grandmother make her way back over to Henry Morris and Harvey.

He turned back to his parents' graves and cleared his throat, suddenly slightly nervous.

"Hi, Mom and Dad. It's me. Mike. Sorry I haven't come by before. A lot has happened since you guys died. I still miss you a lot," he said, and to his great surprise, it wasn't nearly as painful as he'd thought it would be to talk to them like this. "But I'm doing okay. I think you'd be proud of me—I'm finally going to Harvard. I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited too. Harvey says that's how it should be.

"Oh, wait, I forgot you guys don't know about Harvey. He's the guy who adopted me. He's great—you'd think he's handsome, Mom. And Dad, you and him would have a great time fighting about the Mets and the Yankees. He's helped me through a lot of stuff—taught me how to shave and how to drive and how to be a man. Dad, I hope you don't mind that I call him 'Dad' most of the time. I just—he was there when I needed him, and he's done a ton of stuff that he never had to do, just because he cares about me.

"Don't get me wrong, he drives me crazy too—I've lived with him for four years and he has yet to cook a meal without burning _something. _And he's too protective sometimes, but sometimes I don't really mind it. I guess…I'm going to miss him a lot when I leave. But I'm glad I came to talk to you guys because I feel better now—kind of like when I used to call home when I was homesick at a sleepover. I'll come back in a few months, okay? Love you guys."

He lightly trailed his fingers over their names and wiped his eyes before stepping away then and rejoining their little group a few rows over.

"I'd like a moment to say something too, Mike," Harvey said. Mike shrugged and nodded in approval and watched from afar as Harvey went over and spoke briefly to the two headstones. He had no clue what his adoptive father was saying to his birth parents, but Harvey had a quiet smile on his face when he walked away, so Mike supposed it was okay.

He himself felt much better and much less worried about going to school now too, and a surprisingly light mood settled over the group considering that they were in a cemetery.

"I brought some whiskey for a toast," Harvey said, suddenly producing a classy-looking bottle of alcohol and some shot glasses out of nowhere. The four of them assembled around James and Nina's graves, and Harvey poured six shots while Henry nodded approvingly at the name Macallan on the label of the bottle. Mike didn't know what that meant exactly, but he guessed it meant 'expensive.'

"Who's going to drink my parents' shots?" Mike asked.

"Not you," Harvey said. "You get one. And just this once for this special occasion; don't think I'm encouraging your underaged drinking. I'll have one, and maybe Henry will want the other one."

"Excuse me, Harvey Specter," Grammy said with false indignation. "Are you implying that I can't handle two shots of Macallan? I'll have one and you'll have the other."

Mike and Harvey made eye contact and quickly looked away before either of them laughed. Harvey nodded in conciliation, holding his hands up as if to ask for forgiveness.

"Mike," he said. "Would you like to make the toast?"

"Yeah," Mike said, taking a deep breath and holding his shot glass up. "To the people who are family because they've always been there through everything and will still be there at the end. And to and the people who are family because they choose to be. And to James and Nina."

The all toasted to James and Nina and drank, and Mike's horrified face at the strong taste of the liquor made everyone else laugh. Harvey and Grammy picked up the two extra shots.

"To Mike—may he have a great adventure at Harvard and continue to make us proud with the young man that he's turned out to be!" Grammy toasted proudly, and she and Harvey drank.

"Yeah, if he manages to not get the Black Lung from all the mold in the walls of his apartment," Harvey muttered as he gathered up all the empty glasses.

"Yes, Michael said that you had a very strong opinion on the state of his apartment," Henry said, his lips twitching slightly as he and Mike and Grammy exchanged knowing glances.

"It should be condemned!" Harvey insisted as they exited the cemetery and headed back to the car. "There's probably asbestos all over the place."

"Well, there might be asbestos," Mike piped up cheekily. "But I hear they're doing asbestos they can to get rid of it."

Harvey gave Mike an exasperated look.

Mike laughed and nudged Harvey's arm. "You get it? Like 'asbestos' like 'they're doing as best as they can to get rid of it'! See, it's funny; Grammy's laughing."

Mike let out a yelp as Harvey pulled him into a playful headlock and mercilessly messed up his hair. When Harvey released him, he slung a loose arm around Mike's shoulders.

"You ready for your adventure tomorrow?" He asked.

"Yeah, I think I am," Mike said, smiling at the family surrounding him and realizing that he really meant it now.

He might have actually been ready all along.

* * *

**So that's that- I know it was a little heavy at parts, but hopefully there was enough fluff to balance it out. Drop me a line and let me know what you thought if you've got a moment :D I was just trying to think about when I went off to college for the first time two years ago, but it was WAAAY less fluffy and emotional than this...I was the 6th child in my family to go to college, so my parents were just kind of like 'k peace bye see you in a few months', but I think we all know that Mike and Harvey are too attached at the hip to just wave goodbye and have that be that :D anyway, 'til next time!  
**


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